The Relationship Expansion
by LizzeXX
Summary: Sheldon/OC - Claire Benson, Sheldon's oldest friend, has come to realize she may like Sheldon as more than just a friend, something which might complicate the best friend agreement she has with him. While she examines her feelings, she must also help her roommate, Penny, consider her own. What will this mean for her friendship with Sheldon? Second in the Cooper-Benson Exploration.
1. The Bad Fish Paradigm

A/N: Hello! And welcome to the second story, The Relationship Expansion, of my Big Bang Theory series The Cooper-Benson Exploration :) I'm very excited to incorporate my OC, Claire Benson, into the world of the Big Bang Theory :) I've written some other stories for Doctor Who, Supernatural, Sherlock, Star Trek, Thor, Merlin, Once Upon a Time, and Star Wars for anyone who might be interested ;) I would recommend new readers check the first story in the series, The Friendship Reestablishment first to understand a little more about Claire :)

This story should be about 23 chapters long and will be updated with a 2-day break between chapters. For example, if a chapter was posted Sunday the next one would be Wednesday and then Saturday sort of thing ;) This will also eventually be a Sheldon/OC story however there will be a period where Sheldon and Amy do start to date. I have no plans to turn Amy into a jealous, cruel person when we get to her part of the story. She will approach her feelings as logically as always and may use Penny as a basis, but I will try my very best not to turn her into anything that she isn't or isn't shown to have the potential to be in the show. I will try very hard to stay true to both Sheldon and Amy as much as I can while also having the history my OC will with Sheldon ;)

A quick physical description, Claire is a tall, thin, redhead with grey eyes, she has a more pronounced southern accent than Sheldon. Her outfits of choice are rather mismatched and not quite in style due to her indecisive nature. Sometimes she wears glasses but only when reading or writing ;) To help picture her more, an actress that is similar to how I see Claire in my head is Felicia Day :)

~8~ is a scene break.

Disclaimer: I do not own Big Bang Theory...or Penny and Leonard would have never broken up :)

~8~

The Bad Fish Paradigm

Claire looked up from the book she was reading, or more so pretending to read, when she heard the door open, half holding her breath in the hopes that Penny wouldn't notice her panting from where she was sitting at the couch. The less Penny knew about her roommate having spied on her through the peephole of their apartment before sprinting (and nearly tripping) to get to the couch when Penny started to head to the door, the better. Right now she was trying to act like she hadn't just been eavesdropping on Penny's date and it might have worked...if her book hadn't been upside down. Luckily though Penny didn't seem to notice, the blonde seeming lost in thought about her date.

"Good date?" Claire called, startling Penny from her thoughts.

"Ok..." Penny closed her eyes and shook her head, focusing, "R?"

Claire blinked, "R...what?"

"Solving for R?" Penny gave her a pleading look, hoping Claire could explain it to her, much like she'd taken to explaining a lot of the other scientific mumbo jumbo the boys across the hall spouted every time she tried to talk to them, "Something about distance and time?"

Claire laughed, understanding, "R is the rate, how fast you're going or need to go to get to point B from point A by a certain time. Like...if you had to get to work in 10 minutes and it's 5 miles away, how fast would you have to go sort of thing."

"Got it," Penny sighed, moving to plop down on the couch beside her.

"So..." she beamed, DYING to ask, "How did it go?"

Penny smiled softly, thinking about the date she'd just gone on with Leonard, "Really nice actually."

"Spill," Claire shut her book and looked at Penny intently, excitement radiating off her. She needed to focus on this, focus on Penny and her date instead of the bombshell revelation SHE had just had a few hours ago.

Penny grinned, thrilled to have a girl to talk to and leaned to the side to face Claire, gushing about the dinner and how sweet Leonard had been during it.

It...definitely hadn't been like other dates she'd had, nor was Leonard like any other guy she'd dated either.

~8~

The next day would find Claire and Sheldon in the laundry room, Claire helping him fold his laundry. He was very...particular (obsessive) about his clothes, how they were washed, when, the temperatures used, how much chemical to add to it, how they were folded, who touched them...and many more. Claire, having grown up with him, knew exactly how he preferred his clothing folded and so he was happy to get the work cut in half and it gave them time to talk without the others around, just them, something that didn't happen as often as he would have liked. Though he doubted how much talking they'd actually be able to do at the moment, Claire seemed rather quiet, thoughtful for some reason.

Claire just smiled at him though, trying not to let on just how much this simple act of helping him fold his laundry was making her think on things. She knew how Sheldon liked his laundry. She even knew the exact amount of detergent to add based on what his laundry consisted of. Penny's words kept ringing in her ears about how much she really knew about Sheldon. She knew more about him than many other best friends would know about each other. She doubted there were pairs out there that knew how the other liked their wash done or clothing folded. But SHE did. That was more information you'd know if you were dating someone, if you'd lived with them, if you saw the insides of their drawers and dressers every day. That wasn't the sort of information a mere friend would know or take into consideration while in a laundry room.

She really did know more about Sheldon than a simple best friend would...and now that she was alone with him, she almost didn't know what to say. Coming to the realization that she might possibly like Sheldon in more than just a friendly capacity was throwing her off quite terribly. She hadn't said a word since agreeing to help him fold. And that wasn't like her. She shouldn't be so off, this was SHELDON. She knew how to talk to him, the topics and word choices that would have him talking for hours or debating with her or rambling and...she hadn't used a single one. It was like she didn't know how to act around him now...

And that wasn't fun.

"Hi," Penny called, entering, causing Claire to let out a breath of relief that the awkward silence that had fallen was over...and that was another thing she wasn't used to, awkward silences with Sheldon.

Sheldon gave more of a sigh of frustration than of relief, there went it being just the two of them, "Oh, hi Penny."

If Penny noticed his lack of enthusiasm, she said nothing.

"Hey Pen," Claire smiled wider than normal, "Just so you know, cold water only in Machine 2 and 4's on the fritz with the liquids."

"Thanks," Penny nodded...and tipped all her laundry into Machine 1.

"Oh, good Lord," Sheldon huffed at the sight, "Why don't you just take your clothes down to the river and beat them with a rock?"

"Sheldon, may I ask you a question?" Penny turned to him, pausing on her way out.

"I would prefer that you not, but I won't go so far as to forbid it."

"That's a yes Pen," Claire told her.

Penny nodded, "Ok, here's my question...has Leonard ever dated, you know, a regular girl?"

"Well I assume you're not referring to digestive regularity?" Sheldon frowned, not understanding the question, "Because I've come to learn that such inquiries are inappropriate."

"No, I meant has he ever been involved with someone who wasn't a braniac? You know, someone normal, like Claire."

Sheldon stiffened and turned to Penny, "Claire isn't normal, she's brilliant!"

"Fine," Penny held up her hands in surrender at that, Claire just laughing quietly at Sheldon's defense of her, "Has Leonard ever dated a girl who wasn't smart?"

"Oh," Sheldon considered it, "Well, a few years ago he _did_ go out with a woman who had a PhD in French Literature."

"How is that not a braniac?" Penny shook her head.

"Well, for one thing, she _was_ French. For another," he smirked at Claire, "It was literature."

Claire rolled her eyes, giving him the same excuse and justification she had every other time he brought that up, "Who do you think wrote, or at least edited, the books and screenplays for the shows you like Shelly? Literature majors. That's who."

"So," Penny cut in, not wanting to hear whatever retort Sheldon had to that, she was really a little nervous about her and Leonard and she was very glad that she'd caught Claire and Sheldon in the same place, she needed a girl's opinion eventually but also needed to ask Sheldon as he knew Leonard longer than she did...she needed to be able to understand his answers though too, "Do you think that if Leonard and I keep dating he'll eventually get bored with me?"

"That depends," Sheldon said before Claire could answer.

"On what?"

"Do you have a working knowledge of quantum physics like Claire?"

"I really don't have..." Claire began, but Penny answered.

"No."

"Do you speak Klingon like Claire?"

"Passingly, I speak it passingly," Claire insisted, actually a little embarrassed that she even knew it that much. She was prouder of the fact that she'd learned Elvish than Klingon.

"No," Penny frowned.

"Do you know any card tricks?"

"Ok, ok, you know, I get it," Penny huffed, "Leonard has no business being involved with a waitress/actress who felt so insecure that she lied to him about finishing community college."

"Pen that is not true at all," Claire moved over to her, putting an arm around Penny's shoulders.

Sheldon however was more focused on, "Why would you lie about _that_?"

"Well," Penny sighed, leaning on Claire, "He was going on and on about this college and that grad school and I didn't want him to think I was some stupid loser."

"And you thought the opposite of stupid loser was _community college_ graduate?"

"You know, there are a lot of successful people in this country who are community college graduates!" Penny defended.

"Yeah, but you were neither."

"BUT," Claire cut in, giving Sheldon a look, "Hundreds of people who are college _dropouts_ ended up being very successful. Like Steve Jobs, or Bill Gates, or Brad Pitt..."

"Brad Pitt, really?" Penny looked at her.

"Was going to get a journalism degree," Claire nodded, having wanted to add in a successful actor for the future-actress, "Dropped out two weeks before graduation, I think."

"Huh," Penny murmured, not having known that before, but then she shook her head, focusing on her and Leonard, "Ok look, this is between you two and me, you cannot tell Leonard any of this."

"Oh no," Claire groaned with a small wince.

"What?"

"You're asking _me_ to keep a secret?" Sheldon began, sounding quite offended.

Penny stared at him, "Yeah?"

"Well I'm sorry, but you should have expressed that desire _before_ revealing the secret, so that I could choose whether or not I wanted to accept the covenant of secret keeping. You can't impose a secret on an ex post facto basis!"

"What?" Penny looked at Claire.

"He means you can't tell him to keep a secret after you've told him what the secret is. You should have started with can you keep a secret incase he really can't keep one. And trust me, he can't."

Sheldon nodded, "Secret keeping is a complicated endeavor. One has to be concerned not only about what one says, but about facial expression, autonomic reflexes...when _I_ try to deceive, I myself have more nervous tics than a Lyme disease research facility," he stared at her.

"It was a joke," Claire whispered and Penny gave a confused chuckle, though both girls were also aware that Sheldon hadn't mentioned his other tells, like how he'd slow down his speech and other little tidbits, which was just as well, they weren't about to tell him about them incase he tried to hide them in the future.

"It relies on the homonymic relationship between tick, the blood-sucking arachnid, and tic, the involuntary muscular contraction," Sheldon smiled, "I made it up myself."

"Ok," Penny shook her head, "Look, if Leonard finds out that I lied I will absolutely die of embarrassment."

"Physiologically impossible."

"Oh Sheldon, please!" Penny cried, "Look, I'm asking you as a friend..."

"So you're saying that friendship contains within it an inherent obligation to maintain confidences?"

"Our friendship agreement does, and that's just a more formal version of a normal friendship Shelly," Claire told him.

"Oh," he paused, thinking, "Interesting. See, one more question, and perhaps I should have led with this..." he looked at Penny, "When did _we_ become friends?"

Penny sighed, "When Claire moved in with me. We became friends by association."

"Oh," he nodded, "Fascinating."

~8~

"I.e. I couldn't become Green Lantern unless I was chosen by the Guardians of Oa," Sheldon was saying as he and Leonard walked up the stairs to their apartment, having had a rousing discussion about how exactly to become a superhero or which would be more plausible in the real world, "But given enough start-up capital and an adequate research facility, I _could_ be Batman."

" _You_ could be Batman?" Leonard laughed, just trying to imagine the thin, gangly, germophobic Sheldon Cooper trying to fight crime in the dead of night.

"Sure," Sheldon remarked, not seeing the issue in it, before lowering his voice to a near growled, "I'm Batman," and letting it return to normal, "See."

Leonard had just opened his mouth to say there was more to being Batman than disguising your voice when Penny stepped out of her apartment, "Hi guys."

"Hey," Leonard smiled.

Sheldon just shifted nervously, "Hi Penny."

"Hey, Penny, if you're not doing anything Friday night I thought maybe we could go and see a movie?"

"Oh, um, you know," Penny fished, "Claire and I were planning to have a girl's night in..."

"Oh, that's fine," Leonard nodded, "What about Saturday?"

"I think I might have the dinner shift then," she frowned, "I'm not sure though, the manager hasn't posted the schedule yet, how about I let you know?"

"Great. So you just let me know when you know," he nodded, following her as she headed down the stairs, "So…" till she disappeared, "Oh God, I am the bad fish! What did I do wrong?" he had been trying to convince himself the date went well and that he had a chance with Penny but now it seemed like she was avoiding him.

"Why are you asking _me_?" Sheldon defended, turning to quickly try and get the door to the apartment open, "I have no information about your interactions with Penny other than what you provided me, nor do I have any method of learning such things," and rushing into the apartment.

"What about Claire?" Leonard followed him.

"What about Claire?" he asked, pulling his bag off and placing it by his desk.

"She's your best friend, she's Penny's roommate, you both talk to HER, does she know?"

"I believe Claire would call that a breach of the proverbial 'girl code' and refuse to say," Sheldon remarked, "You seem to be implying an additional informational back channel between me and Penny where obviously none exists."

"No I didn't," Leonard frowned.

"I just think you need to be careful how you phrase things, sir!"

"What's going on with you?" Leonard eyed him oddly.

"Well I might ask _you_ the same question. Why do you insist on attempting to drag me into matters which have nothing to do with me but exist between you and Penny? A person to whom I barely speak," his eye started twitching.

"What's wrong with your face?"

"There's no reason to bring my looks into this!"

Leonard paused a moment before backing out of the room and across the hall, knocking on Penny's door.

"Oh hey Leonard," Claire greeted as she opened the door, a granola bar in her hand, "What's up?"

"I think I might need your expertise on all things Sheldon," he said.

"Ok?" she frowned, confused, but followed him back to the apartment where Sheldon was still standing there, his face twitching even worse.

"Can you explain that?" Leonard pointed at Sheldon, gesturing at him in general.

Claire hesitated in answering, knowing she could likely guess exactly what was bothering him just from how he was ticking. He was trying not to have to lie to Leonard by avoiding the question entirely. When he was actively lying he tended to slow down his speech, but when he was getting uncomfortably close to lying but trying to avoid it, he would twitch. She really DID know Sheldon didn't she?

She sighed and shook her head, "He's uncomfortable."

"With what?"

She shrugged, always had been better at keeping a secrets than Sheldon...more so when there was other reasons she could give in a lie that were at least partly true. She could say that he was uncomfortable with his shirt, with something he just ate, with thinking of a particular scientific formula...until she knew what was actually being discussed, she wouldn't have to actually answer with a lie.

"She can't tell you either as that would be a breach of our best friend agreement," Sheldon called, before turning and practically running to hide in his room.

"Please?" Leonard turned to her.

"I really couldn't find the words to explain what's wrong with Sheldon," Claire told him.

Leonard had to nod at that.

~8~

"Also today we have a fresh caught Alaska salmon, and that's served with a teriyaki glaze and sticky rice," Penny was explaining to a small family in the Cheesecake Factory, "Our soup of the day…"

"You must release me from my oath," Sheldon ran up to her, Claire shaking her head as she walked over as well, having accompanied him there on the bus systems as he hadn't wanted to go alone.

It was...a more nerve wracking and quiet experience than she could remember sharing with Sheldon, the two of them cramped into the seats of the bus, sitting so close their legs brushed. Why did things have to make her so much more aware of Sheldon now that she was starting to think she liked him more than she should as his friend. She had been on edge the entire ride over and far too conscious of how close they were sitting...

"Sheldon, I'm working," Penny hissed at him.

"Why don't you take a minute to decide," he told the family, before leading Penny over to Claire, "I can't keep your secret Penny. Ask Claire. I'm going to fold like an energy based anobo protein in conformational space. Like a renaissance triptych. Like a cheap suit!"

"He really _doesn't_ do well under pressure," Claire had to agree, absently reaching out to rub his arm.

"Oh, look, why is it so hard for you to keep one little secret?" Penny asked him, too frustrated to notice that Sheldon was letting Claire touch him when he usually shied away from touch.

"I'm constitutionally incapable," Sheldon informed her.

"He lost a chance to work with a very prestigious government research fellowship at a secret military supercollider because of it," Claire told her.

Sheldon nodded, "I couldn't keep the location, beneath a fake agricultural station 12.5 miles south east of Traverse City, Michigan, a secret," he remarked before realizing what he'd said, "Which you did _not_ hear about from me."

"Look, just forget I told you about me not graduating from community college," Penny sighed, "Ok?"

"Forget!? You want me to forget? This mind does not forget," he poked at his head, "I haven't forgotten a single thing since the day my mother stopped breast feeding me," he was silent a moment, thinking on it, "It was a drizzly Tuesday..."

"You may want to stop there, Shelly," Claire grimaced, no matter how much she might actually like Sheldon, she did NOT like him enough to listen to a recounting of him being breast fed.

"Ok, look," Penny huffed, "You promised me you would keep my secret so you're just going to have to figure out a way to do it."

~8~

"Leonard, I'm moving out," Sheldon called as he entered the apartment later that day, having just gotten back from speaking to Penny.

"What do you mean, you're moving out?" Leonard turned to look at him from where he was working at his desk, "Why?"

"There doesn't have to be a reason."

"Yeah, there kind of does."

"Not necessarily. This is a classic example of Munchausen's trilemma," he stated, "Either the reason is predicated on a series of sub-reasons leading to an infinite regression, or it tracks back to arbitrary axiomatic statements, or it's ultimately circular, i.e. I'm moving out because I'm moving out."

"I'm still confused," Leonard shook his head.

"Leonard, I don't see how I could have made it any simpler."

"Hey, qu'est-ce que sup?" Howard called as he and Raj entered.

"We just got back from that exhibit of those plasticized human cadavers," Raj grinned.

"And some of those skinless chicks were hot."

"If you'll excuse me, I'm going to pack," Sheldon nodded, seeing an out, and headed to his room.

"That's kind of an overreaction to a little harmless necrophilia..."

"Not you Howie," Claire explained as she entered from behind them, her phone out, "Though that is very disturbing that you'd call any sort of necrophilia harmless," and whacked him on the arm absently for good measure, not taking her eyes off her phone till she looked up at Leonard, holding it up to him, "Shelly texted me that he needs help packing?"

Leonard sighed, "He says he's moving out."

"Oh Leonard," Claire chuckled, "Did you change the contrast and/or brightness on the TV, sugar?"

"No," Leonard frowned.

"Rip a band aid off in front of him?"

"No."

"Buy generic ketchup? Forget to rinse the sink? Talk to him through the bathroom door? Adjust the thermostat? Cook with cilantro? Pronounce the T in often?"

"No!"

"Leonard...did you make fun of trains?" she asked him, very serious.

"I didn't do anything!" Leonard defended, though it was rather funny how well she knew Sheldon, "He's just gone insane!"

Raj turned and whispered in Howard's ear, "Yeah, we all knew this day was coming too," Howard nodded.

"He's not insane," Claire rolled her eyes, "His mother had him tested for that. He's fine."

"That was fast," Leonard noted as he saw Sheldon enter with a bag over his shoulder.

"That's his pre-packed disaster evacuation bag," Claire recognized it, she was the one who got it for him, a 'Saturnalia' gift if she wasn't mistaken.

"Recommended by the Department of Homeland Security and Claire," Sheldon nodded.

"And Sarah Connor," Claire smiled, she wasn't much a fan of the Terminator movies, but she did think Sarah was fairly cool.

"Where are you gonna live?" Leonard asked, "Claire and Penny's apartment is too small and you don't like how messy it is..."

"Until I find a permanent place I will stay with friends," Sheldon turned to look expectantly at Howard and Raj.

"Bye!" Howard ran out, leaving Raj alone to face Sheldon.

Raj hurried to Leonard's desk and grabbed the whiteboard off it, quickly writing, 'You can't stay with me, I have a teeny tiny apartment!'

"Excuse me," Sheldon huffed, "But isn't hosting guests an aspect of Manushya Yajna, one of the five central religious duties or sacrifices of the Hindu householder?"

Raj was silent before erasing his message to write, 'I hate trains.'

"Don't be ridiculous, you love trains."

Raj sighed, nodding, knowing he'd been beaten.

Sheldon moved to the door and dropped his keys to the apartment into the bowl that was resting there, "Claire, would you mind helping Leonard pack up the rest of my things? You're the only one I trust to make sure he doesn't break or steal them."

Claire sighed, "No problem Shelly."

Leonard looked at her as Sheldon and Raj disappeared out the door, "You're not serious..."

"Course I'm not," she scoffed, "Shelly doesn't do very well with rash decisions. I give him till tonight before Raj brings him back before he kills him."

"I know that feeling."

"Funny," Claire murmured, thinking of the few times she and Sheldon had shared a living space, when they were kids and staying over each other's houses, or hosting the other during a holiday, "I don't."

Oh dear lord, she really DID like Sheldon if the thought of killing him hadn't ever really crossed her mind...

~8~

Leonard was awoken in the middle of the night by a frantic knocking at the front door and shuffled his way over in his robe and socks, "I'm coming!" he called, still half asleep...which faded quickly when he opened it to only for Sheldon to nearly fall inside, in his pajamas, Howard beside him with a bag and looking on the verge of actually killing Sheldon.

"Hey, there he is, there's my old buddy-bud-bud," Sheldon patted him on the shoulder before stumbling in, clearly out of it.

"What's with him?" Leonard pointed back at Sheldon.

"Koothrappali dumped him on me," Howard explained, "And he couldn't get to sleep..." clearly there was more to it than that, "So I gave him a glass of warm milk with a handful of my mom's Valium in it. But he _still wouldn't shut up_ , so, tag, you're it," he dropped Sheldon's bag on the floor and turned to storm off.

"I'm ba-ack!" Sheldon called loopily, half stumbling into the armchair as though he didn't realize it was behind him.

"I still don't know why you _left_ ," Leonard remarked, pulling the bag in and shutting the door, pulling out his phone to text Claire, _not_ about to deal with a drugged Sheldon by himself.

"I can't tell you," Sheldon put a finger to his lips and started to sway a bit, seeming to be looking over each shoulder to make sure the armchair was still there.

"Why not?"

"I promised Penny," and then he fell into the armchair with a laugh.

"You promised Penny what?"

"That I wouldn't tell you the secret," he whispered, before someone knocked on the door again, gentler than before, and Leonard went to open it, "Shhhhh!" Sheldon called, his finger to his lips again.

"Oh Shelly," Claire sighed, yawning as she stepped in, already able to see something off with him, "What happened Leonard?"

"Howard drugged his milk," Leonard explained.

"All this over a stupid secret," she muttered, moving to sit on the armrest beside Sheldon, her arm moving around his shoulders more to balance him as he seemed rather unsteady even just sitting. Sheldon quickly turned and leaned on her, almost cuddling up on the chair beside her, closing his eyes and drifting off with his arms wrapped around her middle, making both Claire and Leonard's eyebrow raise at the action of him trying to cuddle her like a teddy bear.

"What secret?" Leonard asked, moving to sit on the coffee table, "Tell me the secret."

Sheldon blinked blearily, looking at Leonard, "Mom smokes in the car. Jesus is ok with it, but we can't tell Dad."

"Not that secret, the _other_ secret."

"Claire smells nice," Sheldon murmured, turning to nuzzle his nose into her middle.

"Not really a secret there," Leonard huffed.

"Aw thanks Leonard," Claire tried to smile but ended up yawning.

"Sheldon, just tell me the secret..."

"I'm Batman!" he cried, his voice deep as Claire laughed, making him put his finger to his lips at her, "Shhhhh!"

"Damn it, Sheldon! You said Penny told you a secret, what was the secret?"

Sheldon still seemed to struggle with saying, so Leonard looked at Claire. She sighed, knowing it would just get worse for Sheldon if he didn't tell, he would end up spilling more secrets, actual secrets, or what others would consider secrets that he didn't, and he'd regret it come morning to know he let so much else slip, "Shelly why don't we tell him if he promises not to tell Leonard?"

"Ok," Sheldon nodded.

"Leonard?" she gave him a look.

He shook his head at how ridiculous this all was, but said, "I promise."

"Penny lied about graduating from community college because she is afraid she's not smart enough for Leonard," Sheldon said quickly in one go.

"So it's nothing _I_ did? It's her problem?" Leonard remarked.

Sheldon just looked up at Claire, "I drank milk that tasted funny."

"Aww, poor baby," she cooed jokingly, running a hand through his hair as he smiled dazedly up at her, "Why don't we get you to bed, Shelly? You'll feel better in the morning."

"Ok."

"Penny thinks _I'm_ too smart for her, that's ridiculous," Leonard smiled, standing to help Claire get him up.

"I know," Sheldon swayed between them, nearly pitching forward as he tried to take a step, stopped only by Claire's hand on his chest, "Most of your work is extremely derivative. Don't worry, that's not a secret. Everybody knows."

"Bed Shelly," Claire led him down the hall.

"Your hand is warm," Sheldon remarked, reaching out to put his hand over hers on his chest, "It feels nice."

"I'm glad," Claire nodded him on, "Bedtime."

"Will you sing me 'Soft Kitty?'"

"That's for when you're sick."

"Drugged is a kind of sick," he pouted, "My tummy hurts."

She sighed, "Then of course I'll sing you 'Soft Kitty,' Shelly."

"I like it when you sing to me," he continued to let it pour out of him, "Your voice is flat and your pitch is off but it sounds good to me."

"Thank you, Shelly. Bed."

"I like when you call me Shelly," he leaned more on her, his eyes starting to close as he rested his head on her shoulder, "You're the only one that can call me that."

"Just like you're the only one that calls me Claire-Bear," she reminded him, "It's our agreement."

Sheldon yawned as they reached his room, "I'd let you call me Shelly even without our contract," he mumbled, pushing the door open and shuffling inside.

Claire shook her head as he went inside, he really was NOT helping her being all sweetie pie when he was drugged.

Leonard eyed Sheldon oddly for everything he'd said and looked at Claire, "Is that normal?" he pointed at the door.

She sighed, "I wouldn't know," she huffed, "He's never been quite that drugged before," she leaned in to make sure he'd made it to the bed ok and sighed, "Help me shift him?"

Sheldon had fallen face down on the bed and was lying there unmoving, best to get him on his back so he wouldn't suffocate himself.

There was quite a line of people that would have wanted that honor themselves.

~8~

Penny looked over from where she and Claire were eating some cereal when there was a knock on the door, or where she was eating and keeping an eye on Claire as the redhead seemed an inch away from her head falling off the hand she was resting it on and going right into her cereal bowl she seemed exhausted. She quickly got up and went to answer it, seeing Claire jerk awake a little more and resume eating, "Hey Leonard," she greeted, seeing him on the other side of it.

"Yeah, hi, listen," Leonard took a breath, "I know what's been bothering you about us, and I have the answer."

"What are you talking about?"

"Right," he winced, "Don't blame Sheldon. He tried his best to keep your secret, and if Howard hadn't drugged him he would have taken it to his grave."

Penny shook her head at the drugging part, guessing that was where Claire had been last night that kept her up so much she was falling asleep now, "He _told_ you?"

"Yes," Leonard nodded, "But it's ok. Now that we know what the problem is, there's a simple solution!" he handed her a brochure.

Penny blinked at it, "Pasadena City College?"

"A place for fun, a place for knowledge. See," he tapped a picture on the pamphlet, "This man here's playing hacky-sack, and this girl's going to be a paralegal."

"Wow," Penny remarked dryly, a hint of anger in her voice, "I get it. Because Dr. Leonard Hofstadter can't date a girl without a fancy college degree."

"Well, it's really not that fancy, it's just a city college..."

"Right, but I have to have some sort of degree to date you?" she crossed her arms.

"That doesn't matter to me at all."

"So, it's fine with you if I'm not smart."

"Absolutely," he grinned, not realizing he'd just 'admitted' he didn't think she was smart.

Penny just slammed the door in his face.

"Ok," she heard him say on the other side of the door, "This time I know where I went wrong."

Penny shook her head at him and turned around, her irritated expression falling to compassioned concern at the sight before her, "Oh sweetie," she sighed, moving over to Claire and pulling the girl's face out of her cereal bowl before she drowned in it.

A/N: Lol, good friend Penny there to save Claire from drowning :) And awww, drugged-Sheldon may have attempted to semi-flirt/hit on Claire :)

Just a reminder, for just the start of this story, I'll be posting the next chapter on Monday and then resuming the 2-day break between chapters ;)

And, one last note, now that Claire sort of realizes that she may like Sheldon (whether or not she may try to convince herself it was just Penny getting in her head or explore how much she really DOES like Sheldon is yet to be seen), I was thinking it would be a good time to think on **pairing names** :) I try to, for most stories, leave that up to the readers :) So if you have a pairing name for Sheldon Cooper and Claire Benson, drop a review or a PM or ask me on tumblr if you'd like and let's say...by next Saturday, I'll put them all together and put a poll up on Sunday to vote for which name you'd like to be Claire and Sheldon's official pairing name ;)

Some notes on reviews...(from the end of TFR)...

Amy comes in the end of Season 3 and becomes more of a regular occurrence in the seasons after :)


	2. The Codpiece Topology

The Codpiece Topology

Claire smiled widely as she followed the odd gang of boys up the stairs of their apartment building, having just come from the local Renaissance Faire. They were quite an assortment of representatives, she had to admit, Sheldon was a medieval monk while Howard had taken to being a court jester, Raj went more for the medieval gentleman and Leonard was a knight. She had given in to a bit of nostalgia from her childhood days and dressed the part of a princess. She wasn't usually one for dressing up or even in a dress like a princess would be, but still...every once in a while it was nice to be a little girly and remember when she was a kid, every little girl wanted to be a princess at one point or another.

And her costume was historically accurate which helped.

Though it hadn't been easy to decide despite considering her youth and fancy of the time. There was just SO many things she could have gone as. Peasant, barmaid, nun, queen, wench, pirate, noblewoman, knight, ooh she had thought she might like to be a knight. But Leonard had his heart set on it, she'd spied him swinging his plastic sword around and hadn't the heart to go as the same. Sheldon had insisted they all be different, and that was fine, she had plenty of options. And therein lied the rub, she had TOO many options. It had taken her and Sheldon three hours of going through a pro and con list to narrow down what she wanted to dress up as. Because as soon as she knew, she'd have to find a decent costume, or find a terrible one and try to salvage it, as she was NOT going to go to the Faire without a historically accurate costume. In three hours they had only narrowed it down to peasant, nun, or pirate, when Penny walked in on them and suggested princess. It had reminded her of being a little girl, the 'damsel in distress' that Sheldon would have to rescue from their brothers.

Never let it be said that Sheldon Lee Cooper was not a master strategist, what he lacked in physical strength to take down their brothers, he made up for in knowing his opponents and rigging things up to take them out for him.

Sheldon hadn't seemed too pleased that she had gone with Penny's suggestion so quickly, especially not after they ruled out being a queen, but he had assessed her costume before they left and deemed it acceptable in accuracy...which was something that couldn't be said for the others, something Sheldon grumbled about the entire way there. Her gown was corsetted on the top, the neckline modest and square, her sleeves tight to her forearm where the sleeves flowed out, her skirt was a bit poofy from her hips out, the gown a dark green and made of a velvet-like material, the hems and neckline embroidered with golden thread in a small maze-like pattern. She had a few pieces of 'jewelry' mostly a cross, her hair pulled back into a snood that was connected to a small crown.

 _"_ Worst Renaissance Fair ever," Sheldon lamented as they turned a corner onto a landing.

"Please let it go, Sheldon," Leonard sighed, tired of hearing the man complaining about every little detail of the Fair.

"It was rife with historical inaccuracies. For example, the tavern girl serving flagons of mead, now her costume was obviously..."

"Germanic," Claire cut in, seeming to be the only one that hadn't gotten frustrated with Sheldon...though that was likely because she had nitpicked every thing right along with him, though she'd done it in more of an amused/teasing way than Sheldon's 'psychotic ranting,' as Penny would call it, "The German Beer Purity Law, the Reinheitsgebot, would have hindered them serving mead. The only things that were allowed in their beers was water, hops, and malt."

Sheldon nodded, pleased he wasn't the only one aware of the grave mistake, "At best they would have had some sort of spiced wine."

"You're both nitpicking," Leonard groaned, he honestly hadn't expected it from Claire...until he remembered exactly what her PhD was in halfway through the Faire when she'd stopped an improvisational Shakespeare recitation to correct them on the proper verse and what play it was actually from and then went into a five minute lecture about it. Educational, yes, but not something you wanted to sit through during a fun trip...though Sheldon had seemed very keen to hear what she had to say despite it being about literature.

"Oh ho! Really? Well here's another nit for you. The flagons would _not_ have been made of..."

"Polypropylene," Claire cut in with a grin, "I was the one that pointed it out to you, Shelly."

"Renaissance Faires aren't about historical accuracy," Howard huffed, "They're about taking chubby girls who work at Kinko's and lacing them up in corsets so tight their bosom jumps out and says howdy."

Claire rolled her eyes at that and whacked him with the small paper fan in her hand, making him shoot her a glare and rub his arm.

Sheldon scoffed, seeming to agree with her reaction but for a different reason, "Bosoms would not have said howdy in the 15th century. If anything they would have said..."

"'Huzzah!'" Claire shouted, throwing a fist into the air, laughing when the others gave her an odd look at her enthusiasm, "Guys this was practically half my degree, I _know_ this stuff. I'M allowed to nitpick."

"I don't care what the bosoms say," Howard muttered to himself, "I just want to be part of the conversation."

"Hi guys," Penny called as she stepped down the stairs to the landing they'd reached, a man following behind her as she took in their attire, "Looks like you've been to the Renaissance Faire...I'm hoping..."

"Yep," Claire nodded, though she was giving a small frown to the man standing behind Penny, not knowing who he was or why he was there.

"Renaissance Faire?" Sheldon scoffed, "More of a medieval/age of enlightenment/any excuse to wear a codpiece Faire."

"Ok, fine, whatever, um..." Penny trailed off seeing the boys glancing at the man, and sighed, "You guys, this is my friend Eric..."

"Hello," Howard nodded.

"Hi," Leonard waved weakly.

"Hey," Eric greeted with a smile.

"So, yeah, good to see you," Leonard looked at Penny.

"Yeah," she nodded, feeling a little awkward to be caught leaving with a guy after she'd had that date with Leonard a short while ago, "Yeah, it's good to see you too. We should really go."

"Yeah," Eric agreed.

"Bye guys," Penny pulled Eric along, wanting to get out of there quickly.

"Like your hat," Eric called to Howard as he left.

"Thanks, my mom made it," Howard told him as the man disappeared.

"Smooth Howie," Claire laughed.

Howard ignored her and turned to Leonard, "Penny with a new guy, tres awkward."

"It wasn't awkward," Leonard muttered as they headed up the stairs again, though his voice told them just how awkward it really was, "It wasn't _fun_ ," he admitted, "Besides, what's the big deal? We dated, we stopped dating, and now we're both moving on."

Claire sighed at that, it was awkward because there hadn't been an official end to the dating, from what she knew. Penny had shut the door on Leonard after he tried to get her registered for community college and...things just didn't progress. She'd told Leonard she'd tell him when she was free next, which implied she WOULD date him again, or go on another one...yet nothing came from it. She was really going to have to talk to Penny about that. Leonard wasn't like other guys, she couldn't just date him and drop him and not expect him to wait for her or think there was a chance at a second date.

"By moving on, do you mean, she's going out with other men and you spent the afternoon making 15th century soap with Wolowitz?" Raj asked from the very back of their line heading up the stairs, Claire at the forefront just behind Leonard. They'd learned that, as long as he couldn't SEE Claire's face, he could actually talk. Howard had suggested blindfolding him whenever Claire or Penny were in the same room so that he could talk instead of jot down his words on the whiteboard, but so far it hadn't been tested.

"That was NOT 15th century soap!" Sheldon cried, "My God, those people need to learn you can't just put 'ye olde' in front of anything and expect to get away with it!"

"Can we _please_ just go in, my chainmail is stuck in my underwear," Leonard shifted as they reached the 4th floor.

"Good idea Leonard," Claire headed for her apartment, reaching into her neckline and pulling out her keys from where she'd stashed them in her corset top, not having had a purse or pockets, "I'm getting changed out of this corset, hate these things," she muttered.

"You're wearing modern underwear?" Sheldon asked Leonard, the men more staring at Claire, having seen her pull the keys out and where from while Sheldon's back had been turned to unlock their own apartment.

"Relatively modern," Leonard shook his head, the others snapping out of it when Claire shut the door to her apartment, leaving them to head into their own, "Why, what are you wearing?"

"Claire helped me fashion historically accurate undergarments out of linen," Sheldon stated.

Leonard blinked at that, "You went out and bought linen?"

"Don't be silly," Sheldon rolled his eyes, heading into the room, "I borrowed one of your pillow cases."

" _Borrowed_?" he grimaced, following Sheldon in.

~8~

Sheldon rolled his eyes as Leslie Winkle, one of his arch rivals, approached their lunch table in the University cafeteria, he didn't understand why Leonard would think to agree to possibly date that woman in the past, present, or future. He truly couldn't understand the appeal in someone like Leslie, her research methodology was sloppy, she was unjustifiably arrogant about loop quantum gravity, and to make matters worse...she was often mean to him. And Claire didn't like it when people were mean to him, so she didn't like Leslie. And really, Claire was the only woman who's opinion mattered to him, sometimes, on certain topics, her opinion mattered more than his own mother's.

"Hey, Leonard," Leslie called as she stood at the end of their table.

"Hey, Leslie," Leonard smiled.

"Hey, dummy," Leslie smirked at Sheldon.

"Hello to you, insufficiently intelligent person," he shot back.

"Ooh, rush me to the burn unit," she mocked, before focusing on Leonard, "Hey, Leonard, do you have a second, I need to ask you something."

"Uh, sure," Leonard nodded.

"You can't sit there," Sheldon called as Leslie moved to sit at the end of the table, "Claire sits there."

Leslie just rolled her eyes and sat down anyway.

"Well," Sheldon huffed, getting up, "If you'll excuse me, I'm going to go do work that promises significant results, as opposed to what you do, which does not. Yeah, you heard me," he remarked to Leslie before turning to head out the doors, turning Claire as she moved to enter through them around to follow him, leaving Leonard to Leslie.

And really, he would not subject Claire to a person like Leslie if he could help it, if she made fun of HIM he could only imagine what Leslie would say to Claire and he had made a vow as a child to never allow that to happen.

~8~

"Great news!" Sheldon called as he opened the door to the apartment later that day, holding it for Claire to enter, the girl carrying a box, "My mom sent me my old Nintendo 64!"

Leonard sighed as he stood up from where he'd been setting the table with wine and candles, he had a date with Leslie tonight, "Terrific."

"You know what this means, don't you? Break out the Red Bull, it's time to rock Mario old school."

"I have to say I'm actually excited," Claire remarked, setting the box down, she wasn't as into video games and comics as Sheldon was but she knew them and she played them with him when he hadn't been able to find others to do it with him. She wasn't a massive fan of some games, but she had to admit, she DID love Nintendo. It was hard not to.

"I kind of have other plans tonight," Leonard gestured at the table.

"Oh I'm sorry Leonard," Claire realized what was going on just from his well dressed presence and the set up of the table.

Sheldon though just said, "But it's Friday. Friday's always vintage game night. Look, mom included the memory card," he held it up for Leonard to see, "We can pick up where Claire and I left off in 1999, when I had pernicious anemia."

"Well, the thing is...someone's coming over..." Leonard tried to explain.

"Well then, no problem, I have four controllers, the more the merrier."

"Shelly Bean I think he means he's got a _date_ ," Claire explained.

"Yes," Leonard nodded, "I have a date coming over."

"Oh, well you can't blame me for not jumping to that conclusion," Sheldon remarked.

"Why, what's so unusual about me having a date?"

"Well, statistically speaking…"

"Rhetorical Shelly," Claire cut in, knowing that there were probably a good deal of reasons why Sheldon wouldn't automatically think Leonard had a date coming over, given how long it had taken the man to ask Penny out, he didn't seem to go on or have dates often enough for it to be a consideration to Sheldon.

"Nevertheless, I have one now and I would appreciate it if you would, you know, make yourself scarce," Leonard tried to say.

"Leonard, I am a published theoretical physicist with _two_ doctorates and an IQ which can't be accurately measured by normal tests, how much scarcer could I be?" Sheldon shook his head.

"Not literally, Shelly," Claire gave him an amused look but started to pick up the box again, "He wants privacy."

Sheldon frowned at Leonard, "You want me to leave the apartment?"

"Yes," he nodded.

"You mean just go someplace else and be…someplace else?"

"Yes."

"Well, why should _I_ leave, this is _my_ apartment too?"

"I know it is," Leonard huffed, glancing at his watch, knowing Leslie would be there any minute now, "And, if you and Claire would ever like some privacy, I would be more than happy to get out of your way..."

Sheldon frowned, "Why would Claire and I need privacy?"

"He means, um, if...if we ever went on a date," Claire explained, a very faint blush on her cheeks as she suddenly found shifting the items in the box to be the most fascinating thing to do at the moment..

"Oh," Sheldon nodded, actually giving pause to think about that.

A date with Claire...what would that even entail?

He had been alone with her many times before, they had engaged in, what he was sure was, typical date events. They watched movies, both at home and in theaters, they had dinner sometimes, they walked places together, they went to the comic book store and regular book store, they exchanged gifts on the day they met...sometimes she even held his hand when he got scared during a movie. They did all those things, but he was fairly certain that it didn't qualify as a date...

Did it?

~8~

Penny stopped short as she entered her apartment to see Claire and Sheldon sitting on her couch, playing a Nintendo she was pretty sure she didn't own that was hooked up to her TV, "Hey guys...what's going on?" she asked in greeting.

"Playing Super Mario," Sheldon called.

"Ok...why here though?" Penny looked at Claire but Sheldon answered again.

"I'm a modern day Napoleon exiled to the Elba of this apartment because Leonard, get this, has a _date_."

"Huh?"

Claire paused the game and turned to her, offering her a smile, "Napoleon was kicked out to Elba for a little while. And Leonard kicked Shelly out of the apartment for his date."

"Oh," Penny nodded, moving to sit on the armrest of the couch, "Oh, well, good for him," she muttered, though she didn't sound pleased to hear Leonard had a date at all, "Well...if _Leonard's_ on a date, why didn't you two go to a movie or something?"

"Together?" Sheldon blinked.

"Yeah."

"Like on a…a…date?" he repeated the notion Claire had brought up before, wondering why everyone kept mentioning that to him.

He wasn't...he didn't...Claire was his friend. Dating implied girlfriend and while Claire was a girl and his friend, he was certain she wasn't his girlfriend. And really, would that be a good thing if they did date? Look at Leonard and Penny! They were friends, they dated, and now things were very awkward for all of them because now they were not-dating. He didn't want that to happen with Claire, she was his very best friend. If things ever grew that awkward with her, he didn't know what he'd do.

Though he probably didn't have to worry about that, Claire didn't want to date him, he was sure of it.

"Why not?" Penny shrugged with a smile.

"What if I choke on my popcorn?" he shook himself from his thoughts.

"Then I'd administer the Heimlich maneuver," Claire cut in.

"Or just don't order popcorn," Penny pointed out, starting to get excited, because neither of them had turned down the idea flat out yet.

"No popcorn at the mo…listen to yourself," Sheldon scoffed, restarting the game.

"You could always go to a coffee shop," Penny tried to steer the conversation back to that.

"Shelly doesn't drink coffee," Claire said.

"What about cookies? Pastries, bear claws..."

"No," Claire grimaced, "Neither of us like bear claws."

Penny sighed, "You know, for someone so normal you sure miss a lot of clues..."

They paused, Claire's retort falling quiet as they heard the door to the apartment open through the walls, Leonard greeting Leslie more than a little loudly, almost as if he wanted Penny to hear.

"Leslie Winkle," Sheldon sighed, "Of all the overrated physicists in all the labs in all the world, why does it have to be Leslie Winkle?"

"Well, they have a lot in common," Penny shifted uncomfortably, "I mean they're both scientists..."

"Oh please," Sheldon scoffed, "The _only_ way she could make a contribution to science would be if they resume sending chimps into space."

"Pen," Claire turned to her, putting a hand on her arm, "You DO realize he's only dating Leslie because you haven't really kept up with the dating HIM thing, right?"

Penny clammed up for a moment, "Well look at the time, I have a date to get ready for, see ya!"

And with that, Penny ran back into her room, leaving Claire to shake her head at her roommate, she really did have to talk to Penny about this.

Sheldon sighed, "Everybody has a date. Even you, Mario, going after Princess Peach. And what am I doing?"

"Enabling him," Claire cut in, shaking off all her thoughts about dating that Penny and Leonard had brought up, not wanting this to be as awkward as the last few times she'd been alone with Sheldon, "Now come on Shelly, back to the game!"

Sheldon, however, paused the game and looked at her, "We're engaging in an activity," he stated.

"Yes..." she trailed, not sure what he was getting at.

"Together, just the two of us, alone," he frowned, "We've ordered food, we're talking, and we're interacting..." he hesitated a moment, "Is this a date?"

Claire blinked twice at him for that, "No," she answered instantly, a little too quickly though Sheldon didn't seem to notice, "No, this is...this is two friends, hanging out, playing video games. If it was a date, Shelly, you'd know."

"I would?"

"I'd tell you," she promised.

"Alright," he nodded, restarting the game.

Claire tried her best to focus on the game after that, though she was mentally slapping herself for answering so quickly. She'd panicked! She'd only JUST realized she might like Sheldon in a non-friends way and she knew him, he would need much more time to process it than she would...and boy was she still processing it. If she said that yes, what they were doing right now was a date...well, she honestly didn't know what he'd do. Sheldon had never been on a date before, but he'd always implied he didn't see the point in them nor did he want to go on one. If she said it was a date and...and he reacted badly?

She didn't want to think about it.

Maybe if she HAD said yes, that it was a date, he would have been ok with it? Maybe they could have talked about it, about themselves and their relationship. But...Sheldon hadn't really done anything differently with her, hadn't reacted or treated her differently, not in a way that made her feel like he might like her as more than a friend too. And did she want to risk it? Risk dating him and have it become as awkward as Penny and Leonard were being?

They had been friends for SO long she just...she couldn't risk that friendship till she really knew what she felt, whether she genuinely did love...LIKE Sheldon, or if it was just Penny getting inside her head and making her think things she didn't really feel.

Sheldon was too important to her to not be sure.

~8~

A few hours later would find Penny rushing into her apartment, only to see Claire standing before the door, her arms crossed, shaking her head and smirking, "Don't think I didn't see that little kiss-war you and Leonard had going on just then sugar," she laughed, recalling how she'd been looking out the peephole because she'd heard Penny return but then heard nothing at all after Leonard's voice sounded too...only to see both Penny and Leonard kissing their dates but trying to outdo the other in the passion of the kiss, clearly trying to make the other jealous, "You two are so gone about each other!"

"Please don't," Penny nearly whined, "It was just..." she huffed, falling onto the couch, "I don't know what it was. I don't even like Eric that much."

"I'll tell you what it was, sugar," Claire moved to sit on the small coffee table to face her, "A little think people call jealousy."

"I'm NOT jealous of Leonard and Leslie."

"Maybe not, but you certainly wanted to MAKE him jealous."

"Oh please," Penny shook her head, "That's just...ridiculous."

Claire looked at Penny seriously a moment, "Pen..." she began, not sure if this was proper for roommates to talk about but hoping that she and Penny were friends enough to discuss it, "What happened with you and Leonard? You came back from that date with him practically floating. And now you're avoiding him at all turns."

Penny fidgeted at that, "Nothing, nothing happened," she answered, "We had a good date but it...look, let's just say that it proved to me that...I'm not smart enough for him," she thought back to a small physics trick he had done for her, how it had ended up a little lecture that she hadn't followed. And then, so soon after, hearing from Sheldon that Leonard hadn't really dated normal women? And that part where he'd tried to get her back into college? It just...she wanted a guy that would like her for exactly who she was, not someone that wanted her to get a degree when she didn't want one, when she was content with where she was in her life.

"You're kidding me," Claire gave her a look, "Pen, didn't the physics bowl prove that those guys," she pointed at the door, "Aren't exactly all that smart either?"

"Yeah, but those questions were all pop culture," Penny sighed, "It's not anything that's important, like...like science. It's not going to change the world if I know who the Kardashians are instead of that Fig Newton guy."

"Isaac Newton," Claire corrected absently, wincing when Penny gave her a look, "Penny...you realize that half the things in their lives, the shows and movies they're obsessed with, more than half those people that they watch, the characters that they play...are actors," she reached out to take Penny's hand, "They barely have a clue the scientific mumbo jumbo they're spouting on that screen, but the boys love it. You know what helped Sheldon get through years of bullying?" Penny was silent but shook her head, "Spock. He related to Spock. Now I know you don't think Leonard Nemoy is an actual alien from the planet Vulcan, he's an actor...but he influenced Shelly's life, Penny. And ACTOR affected his life, just like all the other ones in science fiction helped build the men those four became. Thousands, millions, of children are going to go to the movies and watch some actor playing a scientist and think that is just the bees knees and they're going to get interest in science because of them. That actor don't know a thing about the difference between a proton and an electron, but those kids will. Actors are affecting the lives of everyone that sees their movies, especially kids. So don't you DARE tell that your aspirations to be an actress, that you becoming one, wouldn't change the world. Trust me, Pen. It WILL."

Penny smiled at that, "Thanks."

Claire nodded, "Leonard wasn't always this smart, neither was Shelly, believe it or not..."

"Not," Penny muttered.

"They're just better at learning, Pen," she squeezed her hand, "No one is born knowing that E=MC squared, they have to learn about it, read it, work it out themselves. I hated math, I was much better at English. We're all different, we all are smart and better than others at different things. Just cos you're not smart in science, doesn't mean you're not smart in so many other things. Do not let a man's intelligence set the bar for your own. You know things Leonard doesn't know, A LOT of things."

"I know," Penny sighed, "I just...I've never dated a guy so smart before and it's just...even hearing him talk about comic books makes me feel like he's smarter than me. Even then he uses words I've never heard before."

"Try growing up with Shelly," Claire deadpanned, "I spent so much time in the library looking up words in the dictionary and thesauruses..." she shook her head, "It just stuck better with me," she looked at Penny, "We had a deal, Pen, remember?" she squeezed her hand again, "You help me not burn down the apartment when I try to cook and I'd help you understand the boys. That doesn't just mean translating what they say into simpler terms. I'm gonna help you really understand what they're saying, and one day it'll stick and you won't need my help anymore, cos you'll be just that smart that you can talk to them in all that science speak too."

"I don't think that'll ever happen," Penny laughed at that, though she was smiling again.

"Good," Claire let out a little breath, "Cos I don't think I'll ever be able to not burn food, so we're gonna have A LOT to bond over the next few years."

Penny laughed at that, "Thanks."

Claire nodded, "I get that you don't feel so great about yourself when you think about dating Leonard. So I'm gonna help you get to a point where that doesn't happen. And maybe, later, you can give him another chance, cos he really is a great guy."

"I know he is," Penny agreed, "I want to get to that point too. And...as a jumping off point...E equals MC squared?"

Claire chuckled, moving to sit next to Penny as she explained what that meant.

~8~

Claire laughed as Sheldon continued to grumble about the Faire as they sat in the cafeteria eating lunch the next afternoon, "I'm sorry, I am _not_ going back to the Renaissance Fair."

"Come on, Sheldon, there's so few places I can wear my jester costume," Howard whined.

"I don't care. There are _far_ too many historical anomalies for my comfort."

Claire perked up at the word 'anomalies' and smiled at how the boys' expressions fell, not seeming to realize the opening Sheldon had just given them. So she held up her hand to them in a 'leave it to me' motion, turning to Sheldon, "Shelly, why don't you go as a member of Star Fleet sent down to a planet similar to Earth in the 1500s as part of a task force to gather intel?"

Sheldon stiffened, considering that, "Fascinating."

"Hey fellow scientists," Leslie called as she passed with her tray, "Bookworm," she nodded at Claire, before smirking at the glare Sheldon gave her for it, "Sheldon."

"Hey, why don't we all move over there so Leslie can join us," Leonard asked, seeing Leslie move to a larger table to sit by herself.

"Hmm, let's do it," Howard agreed, standing, with only Sheldon and Claire still sitting.

"If you're having trouble deciding where to sit may I suggest one-potato two-potato, or, as I call it, the Leslie Winkle experimental methodology," Sheldon remarked.

Leonard sighed, "Don't make this hard for me."

"It's not hard," he stated, "It's simple. You can either sit with Claire and myself, me being your friend, colleague, and roommate, or you can sit with an overrated scientist you _might_ have sex with or..." he paused, blinking, "Wait a minute, why am I arguing that you stay when I'd rather it just be me and Claire anyway. Carry on," he shooed Leonard off.

"I have no idea," Leonard rolled his eyes, moving to sit with Leslie.

Sheldon leaned forward, ignoring him, and focused on Claire, "Now...tell me more about the task force's mission."

Claire just smiled, knowing she'd gotten him to agree to the Faire once more.

~8~

Penny shook her head, a small smile on her face when she saw Claire and Sheldon in her apartment again after she got back from her shift at work, the two at the couch, playing Nintendo, "Hey, Sheldon, Claire."

"Hey Pen," Claire called back as she and Sheldon raced.

"Penny," Sheldon greeted.

"You know, I still don't understand why you just don't go to dinner or something," Penny moved to stand behind the couch, watching the game.

Sheldon rolled his eyes, it was getting old now, all these people bringing up that he and Claire should go to dinner. Was that what it was going to be like every time they ate alone together? People asking if the date went well? He hoped not. In order to avoid such questions the logical thing to do would be to not have meals with Claire alone any more...and he didn't want to do that, he liked sharing meals with her. She always provided stimulating conversation and was respectful of his quirks and idiosyncrasies when it came to how he ate and organized his food.

"Penny, are you sure things can't work out with you and Leonard?" Sheldon asked instead.

"Excuse me?" Penny blinked, thrown.

"I'm just wondering if you really gave it the old college try? Or in your case the old community college try?"

"Ok, where is this coming from?" Penny looked at Claire.

"Leslie, Shelly's 'arch enemy,' is over again," she explained, "Shelly doesn't like it."

"His arch enemy?" Penny raised a brow at that.

"Yes," Sheldon nodded, not seeming to catch her incredulous tone, "The Dr. Doom to my Mr. Fantastic. The Dr. Octopus to my Spiderman. The Dr. Sivana to my Captain Marvel. The..."

"Ok," Penny cut in, "I get it, I get it, I get it."

"Do you know, it's amazing how many super villains have advanced degrees," Sheldon remarked to Claire, "Graduate school should probably do a better job of screening those people out."

"Sheldon, come back, you're losing me," Penny called, seeming on the verge of snapping her fingers to pull his attention back to the topic at hand.

"Leslie Winkle belittles his research," Claire simplified.

"Oh, sweetie, I'm sorry," Penny gave a little laugh, putting a hand on Sheldon's arm.

"She called me dumb-ass," Sheldon pouted.

"I know. I've heard."

"Given this situation, I have no choice but to withdraw my previous objections to your ill considered relationship with Leonard."

"Oh, gee, well, thank you for that," Penny chuckled, "But, um, I think for now Leonard and I are just going to stay friends."

"No," he shook his head, "That response is unacceptable to me."

"Sheldon, you are a smart guy, you must know…"

"Smart?" he scoffed, "I'd have to lose 60 IQ points to be classified as smart."

"Shelly let the woman talk," Claire fixed him with the look, quieting him.

"I'm sorry," he zipped his lips.

Penny smiled, "Thanks," she offered Claire, before she turned to Sheldon, "You must know that if Leonard and Leslie want to be together, nothing you can do is going to stop it."

"You continue to underestimate my abilities, madam," he remarked, his chin jutting into the air.

"Ok," Penny sighed, "Let me put it this way, if you're _really_ Leonard's friend you will support him no matter who he wants to be with."

For some reason, Sheldon felt a pit form in his stomach at Penny's words. By that logic...wouldn't it also mean that, if he was really Claire's friend, which he was, that he should support her with whoever she wanted to be with? Which he certainly didn't. That was part of their best friend agreement, they each needed to get a seal of approval by the other for any and all potential boyfriends or girlfriends. It had been his request to put that in. He had managed to protect Claire from falling into the ditch of stupidity the rest of his family lived in despite her friendship with his sister...he hadn't wanted to see her potential wasted by a lesser man.

No, if someone was going to court his best friend, he was going to make sure they were good enough for her.

None had passed his tests so far, not that there had been many tests given, Claire didn't have a boyfriend.

He shook his head at that, not wanting to even think about the remote possibility of Claire getting a boyfriend, and focused his discomfort onto the topic Penny had opened with, Leonard, "Why am _I_ doing all the giving here? If Leonard's really _my_ friend, why doesn't he have to support me in my hatred of Leslie Winkle?"

"Because love trumps hate," Penny answered.

"Oh now you're just making stuff up," Sheldon muttered.

"It's like you and Claire..." Penny continued.

"Like me and Claire what?" he frowned.

Penny blinked at that, glancing at Claire who had fallen very quiet, though she spotted a small pink tint to her cheeks, "You hate people with English degrees, but Claire is your best friend and you think she's brilliant."

Sheldon stiffened, as though just realizing the fault in his logic that he'd hoped to use against Leonard.

"Goodnight Sheldon," Penny smiled, before standing, looking at Claire, "Can you keep it down?" she gestured at the TV.

"Um, yeah," Claire cleared her throat, "No problem Pen," she quickly turned the volume down as she and Sheldon resumed the game, though both of them felt the awkwardness of the silence they found themselves in during it.

~8~

Claire walked up the stairs of the apartment building, slinging her bag over her shoulder, coming from a night course she taught, a seminar on Arthurian Legend, only to stop short on the 4th floor landing, seeing Sheldon sitting in the hallway, on his laptop, just outside his door, "Oh Shelly," she sighed, "What happened?"

He pouted and pointed at his door, "Leslie came over so Leonard exiled me again before I could grab my key to your apartment."

She nodded, "Ok, let's settle this once and for all," she moved to sit beside him, "Listen Shelly, this is what we need to figure out..."

~8~

Claire watched, amused, standing in the doorway of her apartment as Leslie stormed out of Sheldon's, muttering under her breath about how dare Leonard support string theory over her own work in loop theory! The nerve.

"Look on the bright side," Sheldon was comforting Leonard, Claire able to see them sitting on the couch through the open apartment door.

"What's the bright side?" Leonard sighed.

"Only 9 more months to Comic Con."

Leonard perked up at that, "Oh yeah."

"So..." Claire smiled when Sheldon glanced over at her and got up to walk to her apartment to speak to her in private so Leonard wouldn't hear, "I take it the plan worked?"

"Exceptionally well," Sheldon smiled up at her, "Thank you Claire Bear."

"You may be smart Shelly, but I'M a girl," Claire winked at him.

Really, once they'd worked out what Leslie was very defensive and proud of, something that she would not stand for someone taking a side against her on, something that Leonard WOULDN'T take her side on, it was easy for Sheldon to bring that up in conversation and let Leonard drive Leslie off himself.

And really, if the woman wasn't willing to compromise or accept that Leonard just didn't agree with her about that subject, did she really deserve Leonard in the end? Relationships were built on compromise after all.

~8~

The group of boys and Claire walked around the Faire once more, Claire now dressed as a nun as it was a bit chilly out and clutching a rather large cross dangling from around her neck in her hand, ready to use it to whack Howard if he kept making comments about the corsetted women and barmaids that were walking around. Sheldon followed behind them...completely decked out as though he were Spock, Star Fleet uniform and pointed ears and all, "Captain," he called, pretending the scanner in his hand was working, "I'm getting an unusual reading..."

"Yeah, that's great, you guys want corn dogs?" Leonard called.

"Yeah," Howard nodded.

"Huzzah," Claire laughed.

"That's a temporal anomaly!" Sheldon/Spock cried, "Corn dogs didn't come into existence until the first half of the twentieth century!"

A/N: I love the Renaissance Faire :) I'm planning to go to the NY one on September 5th for Time Travelers Weekend ^-^ Yay! :)

Thank you guys for all your suggestions for pairing names! I love them all! :) I'll still be taking suggestions till the end of this week and will open the poll on Sunday ;)

On another note, missed my train in both stations trying to get home today :( But I wanted to update the chapter as soon as I got back to my room lol ;) I hope you liked it!

Some notes on reviews...

Oh Claire and Penny will be nudging each other quite a bit yup ;)

I can say there will be a time where Sheldon lets in on Howard for how he talks to Claire, the boys will be very startled at how defensive and angry he gets about it }:)

Lol, that's definitely going to be an ongoing theme that Sheldon, when he gets drugged or drunk is very open and close to Claire ;) Claire definitely talked with Penny about her insecurities and Leonard here, she'll be trying to nudge Penny back to Leonard as it goes ;)

I think Amy does get jealous at times, yup, I think though that how she expresses it never really ends up being something really terribly mean or harsh, she'll definitely feel jealous of how close Claire and Sheldon are, but I'm just going to try to keep her from doing a 180 or becoming someone unrecognizable when it hits ;)

That happens to me all the time :) I'll be watching Doctor Who or Sherlock and start wondering where the OCs are...and then I remember they're not real :( It also happens in the reverse too, I'll be watching a movie or a show and be like...what's the OC doing there? :)

I can say that there will be an experiment Sheldon does when he realizes he might like Claire. Though it may be one that Claire isn't too fond of in the end ;)


	3. The Barbarian Sublimation

A/N: I'm back! I'm back and I have some news to share in the ending A/N for you all. Namely I published a book, I started a side-business selling candles on Etsy, and my updating for this story will be a little different than it should be (I won't be updating every 2 days or every other day or every day but more whenever I can get time to get the next chapter edited), but most of that will be explained more in the end A/N so be sure to check it out!

~8~

The Barbarian Sublimation

Claire had a small smile on her face as she sat on the armchair in Sheldon's apartment, typing away at her laptop while Sheldon sat with his own computer on his lap as well on the couch in his spot. Where she was working on a writing project, Sheldon was playing an online game of some sort, obvious by the headset he was wearing as he went on.

"Fellow warriors, this is Sheldor the Conqueror," he said, making Claire laugh at his title, "We are about to enter Axel's fortress. Now this is a long run, so let's do another bladder check. Alright Barry, we'll wait for you again, but you really should see a doctor," he felt a small smile creep onto his face at Claire's snickering at his words.

He looked up, about to ask her to join him on the quest he was about to take on as she really would be a much better asset than Barry was, she could at least hold her bladder when needed. But his words were cut off when there was a banging from the hallway that made both of them frown.

"Sheldor is AFK," Sheldon called as he got up after Claire, following her to the hall where they could see Penny struggling to get into her apartment.

"Oh Pen, hold on, let me help," Claire hurried over to her, taking a brown paper grocery bag from her.

"Penny, are you experiencing some sort of difficulty?" Sheldon asked, seeing that, despite Claire taking the bag from her, Penny was still struggling to get into the apartment.

"Yes, I can't get the stupid door open!" Penny snapped.

Claire gave Sheldon a look for that, even Sheldon could tell that Penny was in a foul mood, "Well, sugar, that might be because you're trying to use your car key."

Penny let out an angry huff at that, "Can you use your key then?" she turned, reaching out to yank the bags back from Claire to give her free hands…only to yank too hard and send the contents spilling all over the floor, "Damn it, damn it, damn it, damn it, damn it, damn it!"

"Would it be possible for you to do this a little more quietly?" Sheldon inquired as Penny dropped down to her knees to try and grab what she could off the floor.

"Um, Pen," Claire winced, glancing at the apartment door, "Not to add more to this, but I don't think my key is gonna help much."

"Why not?" Penny nearly growled.

"Well…" Claire sighed, "It looks like your car key's wedged in the lock…"

"Seriously?!" Penny threw the small handful of items she'd gathered back on the floor.

"Well that's not surprising," Sheldon stated, "That Baldwin lock on your door uses traditional edge mounted cylinders, whereas the key for your Volkswagon uses a center cylinder system."

"Thank you, Sheldon!" Penny hissed.

"You're welcome."

Claire closed her eyes and rubbed her forehead at that, "Sarcasm, Shelly," she pointed out.

"Point of inquiry?" Sheldon held up a hand as though he were in school and waiting for the teacher's permission, which Claire gestured him to go on, but he just turned to Penny, "Why did you put your car key in the door lock?"

"Why?" Penny nearly snapped as she pushed herself to her feet, "I'll tell you why. Because today I had an audition, it took me two hours to get there, I waited an hour for my turn, and, before I could even start, they told me I looked too 'Midwest' for the part. _Too Midwest_? What the hell does that even mean?!"

"Well, the American Midwest was mostly settled by Scandinavian and Germanic peoples who, well they have a characteristic facial bone structure…"

"Shelly," Claire sighed.

But Penny was raging, "I know what it means, Sheldon! God, you know, I have been in L.A. for almost two years now, and I haven't got a single acting job, I have accomplished _nothing_ , haven't gotten a raise at work, haven't even had sex in six months, and just now when I was walking up those stairs a fly flew in my mouth and I _ate_ it!"

"Oh, Pen," Claire moved over to her, putting an arm around her shoulder as Penny's angry shouts turned into sobs of frustration. She would have made a comment about the sex part, about how Leonard was still waiting for Penny to let him know about a second date for them, that if she tried to actually have a relationship with Leonard she might get sex from it someday...but Penny really did seem upset and now probably wasn't the best time to remind her about yet another 'failed' aspect of her life.

"Well," Sheldon shifted as he spoke, "Actually, insects are a dietary staple in many cultures, they're almost pure protein."

Penny gave him a look for that.

Claire just rubbed her arm, "That's actually his way of trying to comfort you, Penny," she murmured to the girl, "He's trying to make you feel better for the fly thing by saying, in some cases, it's a healthy and good thing to do."

Penny deflated at that, all her anger and frustration just sinking into resignation and weariness. She nodded her head in thanks, wiping beneath her eyes before she moved to try and pick up the brown bag and gather her things again…

Only for the bottom to fall out, sending a carton of milk spilling all over the floor.

"Oh, son of a bitch!"

Sheldon eyed the spilled and ripped materials, "I believe the condensation on your frozen foods weakened the structural integrity of the bag."

"Shelly," Claire gave him a firm look, "Not helping at the moment. Now," she turned back to Penny, "You come with us," she took Penny's arm, "You can join me and Shelly on the couch. Let's get you some nice, hot tea to drink while I call the locksmith and have him come to see about the lock, ok?"

"Ok," Penny's voice shook with tears as she looked down at the milk on the ground.

"Hey now," Claire nudged her gently, "Like mamas everywhere say, 'there ain't no use crying over spilled milk.'"

Penny sniffled at that but nodded, letting Claire lead her into the other apartment, Sheldon following behind with one more glance back at the milk seeping into the carpet of the hall. He shook his head, that was going to stain and smell soon, he'd have to call the landlord to see about that.

Sheldon looked up as he heard Claire talking, "You can sit just about anywhere, except Sheldon's spot."

"Or the armrest," Penny added with a sniff, sitting down on the armchair where Claire had been sitting before.

Sheldon opened his mouth to tell Penny to move, that was where Claire was sitting at the moment, but Claire gave him a look and shook her head, silently telling him not to say a word before she moved towards the kitchen section to get some tea ready, feeling very thankful that Sheldon was there. He was the tea expert and if she ended up burning another teapot, well, at least he'd be there to shut the pot off before it reached that point. She really needed to work on her focus in the kitchen.

Sheldon moved over to the couch and sat down in his spot, sending Penny a disapproving look when she put her feet up on the coffee table till she put them down again. He sighed, picking up his headset and laptop and getting back to his mission, hopefully, by now, Barry had relieved himself, "Sheldor is back online."

"Sheldor?" Penny raised an eyebrow at that.

"The Conqueror," Sheldon nodded, not understanding the question.

Claire laughed, "He's playing 'Age of Conan,'" she called to Penny, "That's his character."

"Age of Conan?"

Sheldon sighed, "AFK," he pulled the headset off and looked at Penny, "An online multiplayer game set in the universe of Robert E. Howard's Conan the Barbarian."

"Oh," Penny nodded, though Claire could see she still had no idea what he was going on about.

Sheldon, however, nodded, and placed his headset back on, "Sheldor, back online."

Penny nodded slowly, before looking at Claire, "What's AFK?" she asked her, sensing that Sheldon would get irritated with the continuous questions if she asked him.

"Away From Keyboard," she answered, turning the teapot off. She'd made some tea only a few minutes before Penny had gotten back so it hadn't taken all that long for the pot to go off again, which meant a lesser chance of her burning the teapot. Again.

"OIC."

Sheldon paused, blinking as he turned to Penny, "What does that stand for?"

Penny gave him a look for that, like she couldn't believe he was truly asking her that, "Oh, I See?"

"Yes, but what does it stand for?"

"O-h-I-s-e-e," Claire spelled it out for him, understanding that something like that could get tricky where the letters and the way the words sounded were too close.

"Oh," Sheldon nodded, before smiling, "IC."

~8~

Penny had moved to the middle of the couch by the time Leonard returned home later that day, now sitting wedge between Sheldon and Claire with a laptop on her knees, a look of concentration on her face.

"Now just click on the enchanted boots to put them on," Sheldon was instructing as Leonard stepped through the door.

"Oh, I don't know," Penny grimaced, "Can I see them in another color?"

Claire laughed, "Sorry Pen, game's not that advanced yet."

"Just click on them," Sheldon agreed, "Congratulations, you are now a level three warrior."

"What's going on?" Leonard slowly approached, eyeing Penny as though she were some sort of wild animal he'd never seen before.

"Leonard, guess what, I'm a level three warrior!" Penny cheered, beaming at him.

"Great. You know there are groceries outside of your apartment?"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Penny waved him off, turning back to the game, "Shhh!"

"I only bring it up because your ice cream is melting and it's starting to attract wildlife…"

"Uh huh, yeah," Penny looked at Sheldon, "Do I stay in the jungle or go towards the beach?"

Claire chuckled and looked at Leonard, "Had a bit of a bad day, Leonard. Penny's just trying to wind down now."

"It doesn't matter," Sheldon answered Penny, "Right now you're looking for treasure."

"Ok," Penny nodded, focusing more.

Leonard hesitated before moving over to Claire, gesturing her to slide to the end of the couch to speak with him as he crouched down, "How does Penny having a bad day equate to her playing Age of Conan?"

Claire smiled, "She got her car key jammed in our apartment lock, lost a role to an audition, has been involuntarily celibate for half a year, and may have swallowed a fly."

"Half a year of no sex?"

Clare's smile turned into an unamused expression, "She lost a potential job, and THAT's what you focus on?"

"Oh my God!" Penny cheered behind her, "A treasure chest, I'm rich!"

"You're only level three, Penny," Sheldon shook his head at her, "You're not rich," he glanced up at Leonard and Claire, "What a noob."

Penny just reached out and punched him in the arm.

"Come on, Pen," Claire shuffled back over to her, "Let's see about getting you a sword."

~8~

Claire shook her head as she watched Raj setting up a sort of experiment in the middle of Sheldon and Leonard's apartment. He had a stereo speaker lying on its back, with cling wrap stretched over it, and was in the process of pouring a sort of white liquid onto the film covering the middle of the speaker.

"Y'all set up?" she asked, Raj merely gave her a thumb's up, still not able to speak around her.

"Let her rip!" Howard cheered as Leonard turned the stereo on, allowing some music to play through the room, the speaker emphasizing the bass portion, making the liquid start to jump about in a gooby glob instead of how a liquid should move.

The boys started to cheer, slightly swaying to the music, when Penny pushed open the door and entered, a laptop in hand, "Hi!"

"Hey, check it out!" Leonard called her over, "It's just corn starch and water."

"They make up a non-Newtonian fluid which is liquid, but solid under the percussive action of the speaker," Sheldon added.

"That's what makes it get all funky," Howard jived to the tune.

"I still don't see what y'all are getting so excited for," Claire shook her head, crossing her arms over her chest, "We did this experiment as kids in school, it's nothing all that new. I'd bet even Penny's done something like this before."

"Yeah, yeah," Penny answered, though it was clear to them all that she was more waving the question off than actually answering it, "Listen, I need to talk to Sheldon."

Howard and Raj stared at her a moment, till Raj leaned over to whisper to Howard, "No, that's what she said, Sheldon," Howard confirmed.

Penny rolled her eyes at them and turned to Sheldon, "Ok, look, I bought the game, and I've been exploring the Island of Tordage but I can't figure out how to get past the guard captain."

"Do you have the enchanted sword?" Sheldon asked.

"No, no, I've got a bronze dagger."

"Ooh," Claire's face scrunched in a wince, "That's not gonna help you Pen, only an Enchanted Sword can kill the guard captain."

Howard blinked at her, "YOU play Age of Conan?"

He wasn't sure which surprised him more, that Claire played, that Penny was playing, or that two hot women were talking about Age of Conan right in front of him.

"Shelly is my best friend," she repeated, something she'd used as an explanation for quite a few things the others were shocked she knew about, "Who do you think was his partner on half his quests, healing him when he got too cocky and nearly died?"

"Yeah, I'd like to avoid the dying part," Penny cut in, "This sword, how do I get it?"

"Have you been to the Temple of Mithra?" Sheldon looked at her.

"Is that the place on the hill with the weird priests in front of it?"

"No, no, no," Sheldon shook his head, before getting exasperated, "Oh for God's sake, gimme," he reached out and took the laptop.

"Thank you, I really appreciate this."

"You're going to have to learn to do these things for yourself, Penny."

"Don't patronize me, just get the sword!"

"Oh just ignore him, Pen, grown man still doesn't know how to drive," Claire remarked, moving to Sheldon's side to see if he might need help getting the sword.

"What the frak?" Howard just gaped at them, at the two attractive women on either side of _Sheldon_.

"Beats me," Leonard agreed, equally as lost, "They were playing all last night too."

"It's like some kind of weird comic book crossover," Claire heard Raj whisper to the boys, clearly his inability to speak to women or around women was countered by the fact that they weren't really looking or paying attention to him.

"Like if Hulk were dating Peppermint Patty," Howard agreed.

"I always thought Peppermint Patty was a lesbian?"

"Marcie is," Claire looked over at them, making Raj let out a little squeak, as though he'd been caught doing something wrong instead of just talking.

"Yeah," Leonard nodded, "Peppermint Patty's just athletic."

"There you go," Sheldon hit one more key and handed the computer back to Penny, "One enchanted sword."

"Right, gimme, gimme, gimme," Penny half-yanked the laptop back, "I want to kill the guard captain!" before she headed out of the room.

"That girl needs to get a life," Sheldon muttered.

"Oh hush, Shelly, she's just upset and using the game to cope with the disappointments of life," Claire countered, "I think we've all been there before, wanting to be cooler than we are, wanting to go on a mystical quest for glory, but being stuck working behind a desk," she glanced at the boys, "She's playing Age of Conan, and we're making corn starch dance, hit the music Leonard."

Leonard did just that.

~8~

Sheldon stormed into his apartment a few days later, marching right up to Leonard as the man worked on something at his desk, "Leonard, you have to do something about Penny. She is interfering with my sleep, she's interfering with my work, the only area of my life she's not interfering in is Claire!"

It was a nightmare! Penny had snuck into his room one night to ask him questions about a quest that she was being used as bait in. But it wasn't that she'd woken him up from a sound sleep that had been the worst part of it, no, the worst part was _she'd come into his room_. NO ONE, save a very select few (like his mother, on rare occasions, or Claire), was allowed into his room. But Penny had breached the sanctum. On top of that, she kept calling him while he was at work or at meetings to ask questions about even more quests.

It had gotten to the point that he'd snapped at her and told her that, no she wasn't ready for the Sanctum of Burning Souls, because she needed 4 more people and one of them had to be a Level 35 Healer or higher, and told her to just go ask Claire because her character was a Healer and a very high level one.

But Penny just didn't stop!

Leonard gave him a look, "Why should I do something, you're the one who introduced her to online gaming."

"Well, yes, but you're the one who said hello to her when she moved in. If you'd simply restrained yourself none of this would be happening."

"And what?" Leonard crossed his arms, leaning back on his chair, "Am I going to be the one that has to do something about Claire if she has a crisis too?"

"Oh please, Leonard, be serious," Sheldon scoffed, "Claire is a complex person, I doubt YOU would be able to work through any of her problems."

Leonard raised an eyebrow at that, "Is that your way of saying YOU are going to be the one helping Claire when she has a problem?"

"I've done it before, I'll do it again," Sheldon stuck up his chin, as though Leonard had challenged him to something. Claire's problems were always like a puzzle to work through, and he liked puzzles.

"Why don't you just tell her to leave you alone?" Leonard suggested, getting back to the main point.

"Why would I ever tell Claire to leave me alone?" Sheldon frowned.

"Not Claire, Penny."

"Oh," Sheldon blinked, "Well, I _did_ tell her. I told her, I texted her, I sent out a very emphatic twitter. I even changed my facebook status to 'Sheldon Cooper wishes Penny would leave him alone.' I don't know what else to do."

"Well, what am _I_ supposed to do?"

"I don't know," Sheldon sighed, "But if you don't figure something out, I warn you I shall become _very_ difficult to live with."

"You mean, up until now we've been experiencing the happy, fun-time Sheldon?"

"Yes."

And the most alarming part, to Leonard, was that Sheldon was being dead serious.

"I'll go talk to her," Leonard half-leapt out of the chair and hurried for the door.

He had just opened it only to see Claire on the other side with her hand poised to knock, "Oh," she jumped slightly at nearly running into him, "Leonard, good, you need to come with me."

"What, why?"

"Well, there's a…problem, and it's either you or Shelly and it's Penny so…"

"Right, right," Leonard sighed, understanding, Sheldon wasn't quite the best person to turn to when you were upset or going through something. From what he understood of what happened with Penny a few days ago, it had been mostly Claire that had been comforting to her, "What happened?"

"You'd probably have to see for yourself," she nodded over her shoulder and led him towards the apartment she and Penny shared, pushing open the door to reveal…

Penny.

Sitting on the couch with a laptop and headset ready.

Her hair a mess, her makeup smudged, her clothes loose and full of stains and sweat and grunge.

"No, Fritz, I need you on my flank!" Penny was shouting into the headset, "No, I don't know German. Flankenzie, flankenzie!"

"Hey Penny…" Leonard began after the shock of seeing her like that wore off.

"Busy," was all Penny said.

Leonard looked at Claire for a moment, the girl just nodding and gesturing for him to go on, that this was the problem she was trying to tell him about.

"Yeah…" he trailed off, "I see that. Shouldn't you be at work?" he glanced at Claire, "Shouldn't she be at work?"

Claire just gestured at Penny again, a more expressive look on her face, telling him that she had obviously mentioned that as well to Penny yet there the woman was.

"I don't work on Mondays," Penny brushed it off.

Claire sighed, "Pen, it's Thursday."

"Yeah, listen Penny..." Leonard began.

"Uh, Queen Penelope AFK," Penny huffed, pulling her headset down to look at Leonard, "What?!"

"Ok," Leonard rubbed the side of his head a moment, "Um, here's the thing, um," he glanced at Claire who motioned him to keep going, "Sometimes people, good people, you know, they start playing these games and they find themselves through no fault of their own, you know, kind of, addicted…"

"Yeah, get to the point or have Claire explain cos I'm about to level up here!"

"Well, it's just if a person doesn't have a sense of achievement in their real life it's easy to lose themselves in a virtual world where they get a false sense of accomplishment," Leonard explained.

Penny gave him a blank look and turned to Claire.

"You need to get a life, Pen," was all she said. As good and helpful as it was to loose yourself in a fantasy game to cope with the disappointments of life, it was another thing entirely to get THAT lost in them that you put your life on complete hold. She hadn't thought it was that bad for Penny that she'd sunk this deep into the world of online gaming, but she was regretting not stopping her sooner.

"That wasn't what I was saying!" Leonard defended.

Penny didn't seem to care though, "Yeah, jabber, jabber, jabber," she pulled her headset back on, "Ok boys, Queen Penelope's back online!"

Leonard frowned, leaning forward, spotting something not-blonde in Penny's hair, something that was more…orange?

He grimaced, "Penny, you've got cheetos in your hair."

Penny reached up with one hand, not taking her other away from the computer to pull a cheeto out of it, "Oh, thanks," she mumbled…

And then ate it.

"…wow," Leonard gaped at her, that was…very much not-Penny like.

"Yup," Claire nodded, before shaking her head at Penny and crossing her arms in concern.

~8~

Claire was watching Sheldon carefully as the poor guy was nodding off while he sat in his chair in the university's cafeteria. He and Leonard were on one side of the table, Howard on the other, while she sat on the end near Sheldon.

"Hey gu…" Raj's voice suddenly went squeaky as he approached and spotted Claire sitting there, so he nodded a greeting at her.

"Hey," Leonard and Howard called in return, Sheldon's head just bobbing as he slept on.

"How ya doing, Raj?" Claire smiled at him, though she didn't really take her eyes off of Sheldon, not wanting him to fall asleep in his food.

Raj frowned and jerked a head at Sheldon in question.

"Penny's been keeping him up at night," Leonard explained.

"Me too," Howard sighed, "But probably in a different way."

Claire rolled her eyes and grabbed one of her notebooks out of her bag on the floor to whack him in the arm for that comment, "Penny's gotten a little obsessed with Age of Conan," she informed the men, "If I wasn't used to binging on coffee and all-nighters I'd be just as much a mess as Sheldon. She's playing it non-stop, long into the night," she sighed and reached out to gently wake up Sheldon, "Shelly, Shelly-Bean, you've gotta wake up now…"

Despite Claire lightly shaking his arm, Sheldon jerked awake, "Danger, danger!"

"Will Robinson's fine," Claire patted his arm, reassuring him. For as long as she could remember, he'd always wake up like that when he was startled awake, as if he were dreaming of being among the Robinsons and hearing the call coming.

"Afternoon men," Leslie Winkle approached, moving to sit on the opposite end of the table, across from Claire, "Bookworm…"

"Rip-Van," Claire returned the name. Even though her name from Leslie wasn't too bad, the woman was notorious for poking fun at Sheldon and so she couldn't bring herself to give the woman anything less than a semi-mocking name in return.

Leslie seemed to accept it though and just continued her greetings, "Sheldon."

"Oh yeah, well your attempt at juvenilizing me by excluding…" he suddenly cut off with a heavy breath, "Oh, I'm too tired to do this."

"There, there," Claire reached out to pat Sheldon's arm. He reminded her of a pouty toddler when he was tired.

"Right, I heard you've been pulling all nighters with middle-earth Barbie," Leslie remarked.

"She comes into my room," he looked at Claire next, "No one's supposed to be in my room but you or my mother."

Claire smiled at that, she was well aware, it had taken forever for her to get him to even agree to let his mother enter his room with less fight than he normally gave the woman, "I know, Shelly," she patted his arm again.

"Well, I would postulate that she's escaping into the online world to compensate for her sexual frustration," Leslie remarked.

"I do that too," Howard chipped in, "But probably in a different wa…ow!" he winced as Claire hit him in the arm again.

"It's not just that, Leslie," Claire defended, "If it was just the sex, Penny woulda snapped long before now. It's just…a lot of other things coming together at once and she's not handling it well."

"Yeah," Leonard agreed, "She's just trying to shore up her self esteem, it has nothing to do with sex."

"Everything has to do with sex," Leslie argued.

"Mmmm," Howard grinned, putting his hand up for a high-five, "Testify."

"I'm not touching that," Leslie deadpanned.

"I will," Claire shrugged.

Howard spun to her so quickly that the table was almost certain he'd gotten whiplash, "You will!?"

She smiled demurely at him…before smacking his hand with her notebook.

Howard rolled his eyes at that, she did that a lot, hit him when he was being too…well, he didn't know the word. HE was just fine, it was HER that had the problem. Angry, violent Texan ginger…

"Leslie," Leonard turned to the woman once more, "You are way off base here…"

"Hang on, Leonard," Sheldon perked up, "While I have no respect for Leslie as a scientist, or a human being for that matter, we have to concede her undeniable expertise in the interrelated fields of promiscuity and general sluttiness."

"Thank you," Leslie deadpanned, unamused, "My point is that Tinkerbell just needs to get her some."

"Some what?" Sheldon frowned.

Claire sighed, "Coitus."

"I'll take the bullet!" Howard nearly jumped at the chance.

Claire looked down at her notebook and then up at him, "This is going to fall apart before the year is over with you around, isn't it?"

Howard shrugged, "I give it to the end of the month."

Claire nodded at that, agreeing…before smacking his shoulder with the notebook, "You are NOT having sex with Penny, Howard. NO ONE," she pointed a warning finger at both Leonard and Raj as well, prompting both men to hold up their hands in innocence, "Here is having sex with Penny. Understood?" they nodded, "Good."

"You're right Claire," Sheldon agreed, "We should have a neutral third party," and, before Claire could even respond to that, Sheldon turned around and tapped the shoulder of a young man sitting behind him at the table beside theirs, "Excuse me, are you currently involved in a sexual relationship?" he asked the relatively attractive man.

"No…" the man seemed confused.

"Would you like to be?"

"Shelly…" Claire tried to stop him.

But the man just gave Sheldon a pointed look up and down, appraising him, "Uh, sure, why not?"

"Sheldon…" even Leonard tried to stem the event.

"Zip it, pip it," Sheldon waved him off, focusing on the young man, "Can I have your phone number?"

"Uh…" the man blinked, considering that, before leaning in and trying to catch a glimpse of Sheldon's lap area, "Yeah," he smiled, nodding, "Yeah," he turned and picked a pen off his tray, returning to Sheldon and writing his number on Sheldon's hand.

"There," Sheldon turned back to them, holding his hand up for them to see the number, "Problem solved."

"Dumbass," Leslie snorted.

"Oh Shelly," Claire sighed, "Come with me," she stood up and held a hand out to him.

"Where are we going?" he asked, standing and not even pausing to do as she asked.

"Your office, where you are going to take a nap."

"I'm not even tired anymore," he countered as they started to go, "The adrenaline from executing a plan to deter Penny is creating a copious amount of stimulation."

"You're tired, Shell, you just agreed with Leslie Winkle on something…and…well," she shrugged, "We're gonna have to talk about social and sexual cues again."

If Howard spit out his water all over Raj at the words 'sexual cues' and 'again' in relation to talking to Sheldon…well…

What the frak!?

~8~

It was only through an enormous effort on Claire's part that the carpet and couch were still visible in the apartment later that day when she was joining Penny on a quest, her laptop on her lap as she sat crosslegged on the floor, Sheldon sitting on the couch with his own laptop while Penny burped loudly, looking even worse than before with shadows under her eyes, entirely too focused on the game before her. The apartment had been an utter mess when she'd returned from work, littered with empty food containers and red bull cans, and, knowing Sheldon would be coming over soon, she'd taken to cleaning so as to avoid the inevitable lecture on cleanliness that he'd give or risk him getting distracted by trying to clean the apartment himself. They didn't really have much time to spare when it came to a new plan to help Penny get over her little hump in her life, so the less time Sheldon spent complaining and the more time he spent helping would be best.

"Ok," Penny nodded, cracking her fingers, "I'm at the gate to the Treasury of the Ancients, I'm going in."

"Just be sure to stay closer to the wall, Pen," Claire called, having her character follow close behind Penny's, "And try to avoid the mummies, they are nasty little devils."

"Got it."

"I must say," Sheldon began after throwing a small look and nod to Claire to signal the start to his plan, "You're playing very well for a woman of…23?"

"22," Penny corrected.

"Right, 22," Sheldon nodded, typing something on his own laptop.

"Mummies at 12 o'clock Pen," Claire warned.

"Which spell do I use?" Penny frowned, "The hateful strike, or the frenzy stance?"

"What happened to the rest of your group?" Sheldon inquired.

"I dumped all of them except Claire," Penny muttered, "They're a bunch of wussies."

Claire snorted at that, "The only reason you didn't dump me, Pen, is because I'm a high enough level Healer that you need me…and because I'm your roommate and you'd have to deal with seeing me every day after."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, what attack?"

Claire sighed, "Frenzy stance."

Penny started to furiously push the buttons on the keyboard, "Frenzy, frenzy, frenzy, frenzy, frenzy!"

"So listen," Sheldon continued, "Would you describe your ideal vacation as a wild adventure to unknown lands, or staying at home curled up with a good book?"

"What?" Penny asked, not even taking her eyes away from the screen.

"These are market research questions. I'm filling out the online registration for your game."

Claire rolled her eyes at that, she still wasn't sure Penny would fall for that excuse.

"Oh, ok, wild adventure," seemed Penny was more interested in the game than paying attention to the questions, "Oh, frenzy stance isn't working, die you undead mummy, die!"

"Here, Pen," Claire got her character to give Penny something, "Healing potion."

"Thanks."

"No problem."

"Anyhow," Sheldon cut in again, "On a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 being always initiated by him, and 5 being always initiated by you, how do you prefer your sexual encounters to begin?"

Claire nearly dropped her laptop off her lap at that. Really? If Penny didn't work out that something else was going on after that question…then Penny was in far deeper than they thought she was.

"That's on the registration?" Penny did seem suspicious this time though.

"Oh yes, it's quite extensive. But if we complete it, we get a free expansion pack, 75 additional quests."

"Ooh, awesome," Penny grinned, "Ok, I totally like to initiate, I'm a big old five."

"Good to know," Sheldon nodded, putting the information in, "Big old five," he looked up at Claire and gave her a semi-forced wink and an 'ok' signal with his hand, letting her know that the online dating profile he was making for Penny was complete.

Now they just had to wait and see which fish took the bait.

~8~

Claire half-ran to Sheldon's apartment, needing to get there before Penny did, letting herself in with the key Sheldon had given her only to see a nice looking young man, Tom, according to the dating profile that had been matched to Penny's, sitting on the armchair, waiting, Leonard and Sheldon standing before him.

"…a paramedic with the fire department," Sheldon was saying, speaking of Tom, "But he's going to med-school at night, uh, he likes the outdoors, and, uh, strong women who initiate sex."

"And we've got a problem," Claire called, entering, hearing Penny opening the door to their apartment behind her, and making her way over to the boys, "Train wreck a-coming."

Not a second after she'd spoken, the door opened behind her and Penny entered. Her clothing was rattier than before, her hair a nest of some sort, greasy and dirty, stains all over her, with bits of dried food around her mouth, her eyes completely shadowed with lack of sleep and it was all too clear she hadn't had a proper shower in more than a couple days.

"Sheldon, what do you want?" Penny strode over to him, her laptop in her arms, not even looking away from it.

Sheldon looked at Claire for explanation but she could only shrug apologetically. She'd tried to get Penny up and about, get her showered and dressed and fresh for the date…but after the last 3 hours of trying to get her off the computer, even going so far as to play tug of war at one point, even trying to get her character to assassinate Penny's…nothing worked.

"You got my note," Sheldon turned back to Penny, "Penny, I'd like you to meet Tom, uh, Penny, this is Tom, Tom, may I present Penny."

"Hi Penny," Tom stood, holding out his hand with a grimace, clearly not wanting to touch her but feeling the need to be polite.

Penny, however, just waved him off, not interested in the slightest, "Yeah, hi. Listen, as long as I'm here, I'm on a quest with a bunch of noobs, they don't know what they're doing, we've got one assassin, three spellcasters, and no tank."

"What about Claire?" Sheldon frowned.

"Bitch backstabbed me and tried to kill me," Penny couldn't even tear her eyes away to glare at her, "We're not speaking."

Claire rolled her eyes, "If only I succeeded," she muttered.

Sheldon sighed, "Can we talk about this later."

"No, no, no, no, I need you now," Penny insisted.

"But wouldn't you prefer to socialize with Tom, who is a sexually passive outdoorsman?"

"Whatever," Penny scoffed, heading for the door, "I'll figure it out myself."

"Bye, Penny," Tom called, waiting till the door shut before he turned back to Sheldon and Claire, "I'm sorry, but she didn't look anything like her picture," and, with that, he left as well.

Leonard nodded, "They never do."

~8~

Claire was standing in the kitchen of her apartment with Penny, attempting to cook up some mac and cheese while glancing up at Penny here and there, hoping that the girl would snap herself out of her funk soon because she was about 95 percent sure that noodles were not supposed to fall apart in the pot and she really needed to ask Penny about that. But so far she seemed engrossed in the game. There was nothing else she or the boys could think of that would help her and it was driving her insane to not know what to do.

Granted she'd only known Penny a relatively short while, but the girl was her roommate and she was quick becoming a friend and she didn't want to lose that. She'd seen Sheldon go through this before and it was unnerving to think that your friend would abandon you like that and become so consumed by a game that they stopped effectively living their lives. She doubted the same method she used to snap Sheldon out of his funk would work on Penny though.

Penny would hardly react if she burst into tears at that very moment and started to cry in front of her.

Just as she lifted the spoon to examine the soup that was her noodles, Penny gasped and threw her laptop to the other side of the couch, "Oh my God, I need help."

"What happened?" Claire blinked, not having quite expected the snapping out to be that...well...snappy.

Penny just looked at her owlishly, "I think I just agreed to go on a date with Howard."

Claire blinked again, "Howard…Walowitz?"

"Yeah," Penny nodded, starting to turn green at the though.

"Oh sugar," Claire started to smile, just barely remembering to turn the stove off before she was moving to grab a small carton of ice cream from the freezer and bringing it to Penny with a spoon, "You eat this, I'll hide that," she nodded at the laptop, "And if Howard even mentions your acceptance…I'll deck him one for you."

"Thank you," Penny sighed in relief, her mouth half full with ice cream already. She moved to open her arms to hug Claire in her thanks…but Claire stepped back.

"Rain check on the hug," Claire gave her a bit of a scrunched face, "Cos you _really_ need a shower, Pen."

A/N: My deepest apologies for the lack of presence online and with updating. It took me much longer than I wanted to get back to posting. Too many things were happening, between my dad recovering from cancer, my sister moving out, my brother getting engaged (to a harpy that hates our entire family, so we're not handling the engagement very well), getting a job, quitting a job, getting a different job at a Barnes and Nobles, starting a side business making candles, getting a tutoring spot, getting another part-time job, having a few health scares in the family, but we've pulled through all of it and now I am back.

But it'll mean some changes to updating, so I have a few tidbits of information that I want to share with all of you in regards to this story, other stories, and updating.

1\. This story will not be updated every 2 days, it won't even be updated every other day. I've been trying to keep to a schedule for updating, but life has been hating me recently and eating my time due to jobs and side businesses and original writing and family and things, so what I'm going to do for the time being is update when I can. I have the chapters written, but editing takes me almost the same amount of time as writing, so it'll mostly be whenever I can get a chapter edited is when the story will be updated.

2\. This means that we'll be seeing this story, my OUAT (Lyssa) story, my Doctor Who (Angel) story, and even my Lord of the Rings story updated whenever I can get a chapter edited. So we may get a chapter of something every day, or here and there. It may take a week to get an update for this story or just a day or two, it'll really depend on the time I have in a day and what chapter I can get through for whatever story to get it updated.

3\. I've started a side candle business that's taken up some time (along with an actual second part-time job), I sell some soy candles on Etsy (Shop: AnitaCandle, because if you need a candle, I've got them lol), and also some custom candles like the TARDIS, the black cubes from The Power of Three, some small Death Star Candles, etc.

4\. _**I'VE PUBLISHED A BOOK!** _ :D It's an e-book so far, available on Amazon (they offer a free Kindle App so you don't have to buy a kindle to read their e-books). It is 'Patrapolis' by Elixabeth Xavier (my penname, which is derived from LizzeXX), and it is $3.99 ;)

5\. Since I'm mostly updating when I can, my OUAT (Piper) story won't be resumed till I finish my current OUAT (Lyssa) story for Season 2.

6\. Because of the long break between the last chapter, the pairing names for Claire and Sheldon are still open ;) I think I'll close submissions down the next chapter I post (whenever that is) so get some in now because after that I'll post a poll for it ;)

I think that's pretty much it lol :) I'm very glad to be updating again, even if it'll be a little more stretched out, but a little is better than nothing :) I'm hoping to be able to get back to posting more consistently when the summer is over (when my second part-time job should be done).

Some notes on reviews...

Oh Sheldon will certainly have an experiment in mind when it comes to a possible relationship with Claire }:) I've made it a think to go to the New York Ren. Faire every year on Fantasy Weekend, on Time Travelers day, they've started doing a Cos-Play contest and I've been able to watch it the last two years and I'm hopeful to see it again this year too :)

Will and Claire will be interesting for Sheldon to deal with lol. Even if they don't become a couple, I think Will became something of a friend to Sheldon as the show went on, he might just be a little early in terms of forming the same bond with Claire. And, being an actor, and loving to irritate Sheldon, he might know a few key things to do or say to really push Sheldon's buttons...but also make him consider things about Claire as well ;)

I love Bernadette :) I'm very excited for Claire to meet her too :)

I can say there'll be a hint of Claire's go-to cosplay costume in a future chapter ;)

We'll definitely be seeing jealous Sheldon popping up, no worries there ;)

I'm so sorry this took a while to get back up, life kept getting in the way of my free time and the longer it took to get an update up, the more stressed out I kept getting which didn't help either :( I'm hoping by not putting as strict a schedule on myself, I'll be able to get more up :)

Oh I've got plans for how Amy fits into the story, no worries ;) She'll actually play a very big role in character development for other characters too :)

I'm sorry there was a lack of updates :( Life got in the way but I hope to be back and posting more often now :)

I'm not dead, sorry! I'm really sorry I worried you, life and a lot of family drama ate up my free time but it's more or less resolved and calmed down now and I hope to keep posting more frequently :)

Yup, Will is definitely going to come up in the story ;)

I'm definitely going to continue the story, no worries :) It just took longer than I wanted to be able to get back and posting :)

I'm very excited for Leonard's mother as well, it'll be a true bonding moment for her and Leonard. Will will be very interesting as well, he's sort of an ok guy but just gets under Sheldon's skin and, on principle, Claire would feel she can't be his friend, but once they resolve their issues Will might become one of her very good friends...and still get under Sheldon's skin for an entirely different reason ;) Oh Stan Lee, I'm very excited for that episode too }:) As for drunk Claire, we will definitely see that happening in a future episode though I can't say exactly what leads to her pushing past her intolerance for alcohol to drink herself sill }:D

I actually have it on my profile that How I Met Your Mother is one of the few shows that I have no plans to write an OC for. It's mostly because I just couldn't get into the show, I don't know why, it just didn't suck me in :/ I mean there's a chance I may rewatch it in the future and feel differently, but so far no plans for a HIMYM story. Sorry! :(


	4. The Griffin Equivalency

The Griffin Equivalency

Claire couldn't help but smile as she stood beside Penny, waiting for Leonard to finish sorting out the Chinese food they'd ordered for dinner that night while they gathered in Sheldon's apartment.

"Let's see, Raj was the Kung Pao Chicken…" Leonard mumbled as he set that particular order to the side, knowing Raj was on his way over, "And Claire got the sesame chicken…"

Claire took the food and opened the top of it, just inhaling the scent of it, before frowning, "Should I have gotten the chicken lo mein instead?"

The collective groaning of every other person in the room, which as just Penny, Leonard, and Howard at the moment, made Claire pout, "What!?"

"Claire, sweetie," Penny put her hand on Claire's shoulder, "You know I love you, but you spent 45 minutes straight going back and forth between the lo mein and the sesame chicken while we were all starving before we made you flip a coin for it. You're going to sit down and eat your sesame chicken and like it."

"Sheesh," Claire grumbled under her breath as she moved to sit on the armrest of the couch, "Not my fault they're both good."

"Then get both next time," even Howard seemed annoyed, though none of them were genuinely so, more so they were just very hungry and hadn't wanted to wait the extra hour to eat while Claire debated the pros and cons of each meal to them in her indecisiveness, "I'm starving!"

"Aren't we all," Leonard muttered, digging through the bag again, "Penny, which one did you get again?"

"I'm the dumplings," Penny stated.

"Yes, you are," not even his hunger could stop Howard from making the remark.

"Creepy, Howard."

"Creepy good or creepy bad?" Howard grinned.

"No such thing as creepy good when it comes to you, Howie," Claire called, swallowing a forkful of her food, "You're not a haunted house or a movie."

"Who was the Shrimp with Lobster Sauce?" Leonard glanced over, honestly it had been so long ago that they'd even taken the orders of who would get what before waiting for Claire to decide, he wasn't even sure if HE had ordered that at this point.

"That would be me," Howard quickly walked over, "Come to Poppa, you un-kosher delight," he glanced at Penny as she opened her own food where she was sitting in Sheldon's spot, "I'm not necessarily talking to the food."

Penny just gave him an unamused look and pointed away from her, "Sit over there."

"Sit over there," came her repeated words from Sheldon as he entered, seeing Penny in his spot, waiting till she moved to the next spot over (ignoring her rolled eyes as she did so) to off her a small packet of something white, "Baby wipe?"

Penny eyed the damp napkin in confusion, "What do you have…."

"Don't!" came the cry from both Howard and Leonard as they took their seats, "Don't! Don't!"

"I'll tell you why!" Sheldon huffed, sitting in his spot, ignoring the groaning of the other men, "I had to sanitize my hands because the university replaced the paper towels in the rest rooms with hot air blowers!"

"I thought the blowers were more sanitary?" Penny frowned.

"Why!?" Leonard and Howard shouted, "Don't!"

Claire could only laugh behind her mouthful of chicken at their groans when Sheldon launched into a tirade about sanitation, "Hot air blowers are incubators and spewers of bacteria and pestilence. Frankly it would be more hygienic if they just had a plague infested gibbon sneeze my hands dry!"

"He's not all wrong," Claire offered, seeing Penny looking just a little lost, "The heat needed to actually kill any germs would practically burn your hands."

"Got it," Penny winced at the thought, though Sheldon himself had turned to Claire with a wide grin for her support.

Just then the door flew open and Raj rushed in with an excited, "Hey guys, I just got the most amazing new…" and cut himself off into a high squeak when he saw Penny and Claire in the room too.

"Oh sugar," Claire sighed, shaking her head as Raj clammed up.

"Do you think you'll ever be able to talk in front of us without being drunk?" Penny asked the poor boy who frantically shook his head, "Ok, well, we'll just…" she glanced at Claire in a semblance of permission seeking, "Um, go eat in our apartment?" she offered, not sure if she should be speaking for Claire or not, or even if Claire would want to leave.

To be honest, she really didn't want to go either. This was really the first time she'd been in the same room as Leonard and not had it feel awkward since their not-so-bad date, she didn't want it to end so fast. And then there was the fact that Claire and Sheldon were right there, sitting right next to each other on the couch. Granted, that happened every single time they ate, just like Sheldon had a spot, so did Claire, but she could see something different in Claire now. The girl seemed to be giving consideration to what she'd said about her feelings for Sheldon, and if she was considering then there was a possibility that Cladon…Shelaire…Booper? She really needed to come up with a ship name for them, but either way, there was a possibility that Claire and Sheldon might become something more if they just had the right pushes…

She wasn't sure how they fully felt though, she wanted to watch them closely when they were together, especially when they were in a group, get more…intel? Was that the right word? Data? Whatever it was that scientists gathered when they wanted to launch an experiment. Observing them together would help her help them…and leaving was not going to help.

But she felt bad for Raj, he seemed really excited about something he wanted to share with them and he wouldn't be able to get it out with her or Claire there unless he said it through one of the other guys and it seemed important enough that he would want to tell them himself.

"Sure," Claire nodded, almost too eagerly.

"You guys don't have to do that," Leonard frowned at them, seeing even Sheldon was frowning at it.

"It's fine," Claire insisted, standing up and actually taking a few steps away from the couch, moving to walk behind it towards the door, "Really."

Penny eyed her oddly for a moment, seeing just a hint of pink on Claire's cheeks as she waited at the door for her and stood, "Yeah, it's ok," Penny agreed, standing, "I mean, between him not talking," she nodded at Raj, "Him talking," and then Sheldon, "And…him," she frowned at Howard, before glancing at Leonard, "We're probably better off at our place," she moved to follow Claire out, pausing by Raj, "Goodbye you poor, strange, little man," she leaned in to kiss his cheek before following Claire out, none of them seeing the deep frown that had settled on Sheldon's face.

Penny didn't even look back as she shut the door to their apartment behind her and watched as Claire moved and practically fell onto the couch, staring at her food, "You wanna explain that to me?" she asked the girl, partially teasing but also fairly serious as she moved to sit beside her on the couch.

Claire, however, frowned at her, "I don't think Shelly said anything too Sheldon to understand…" she said it hesitantly, as though she didn't want to insult Penny if she truly hadn't understood something Sheldon had said, not wanting to assume that just because it seemed fairly simple for anyone to understand that Penny had or hadn't.

"Not that," Penny shook her head, setting her dumplings down on the coffee table, "Germs are bad, hot air sucks, I got that," she said quickly, "I mean…you practically ran out of there," she eyed Claire, "You ok?"

"Y-yeah," Claire stuttered a moment, before sighing and moving to hide her face in her hands, Penny quickly reaching out to grab Claire's take out before it toppled off her knees from the move, setting it on the table, "I just…I realized I have a spot."

Penny blinked at that, "The armrest next to Sheldon," she said simply, "I'm pretty sure we all know it's your spot, fact I'm pretty sure I even said it to you at one point or another. It's not news…"

"No, I just…" Claire took a breath and pulled her hands away from her face, "It's right next to him. HOW did I not realize this!?"

Penny blinked once more, "I'm a little lost…" she admitted.

Claire sighed, "My spot, on that couch, it's right next to Sheldon. I never noticed it was THAT close to him till he turned to smile at me. It's just..." she looked at Penny, "Why did you have to say that to me Penny?"

"Ok, really lost now," Penny frowned, "What did I say?"

"Why did you have to say I had feelings for Shelly?" she put her hands back on her face, looking down again, "It's all I can think about now."

And it was true. She really had never realized just how close her spot was to Sheldon before just that moment. He was so close, he was right next to her, so near that she could feel his body heat along her side. It had hit her the second he'd turned to smile at her, it was so big, just a foot away from her face and she'd realized that it was too close. She'd jumped up and nearly run out of the room because all she could think about was how nice it was and how she liked being so close to him and she wouldn't mind if, one day, he wanted her to sit a little closer and...it was too much.

She shouldn't be thinking this! Not about her best friend!

She'd needed some space, and just...ran. And she knew, she KNEW, Sheldon would be worried and seek her out before the end of the night to ask her about it and she'd have to lie to him. She hated lying to him but she couldn't just blurt out what she was feeling. Sheldon was tricky and his grasp on emotions was limited and the last thing she wanted to do was to make him uncomfortable or risk their friendship. Especially when she wasn't really sure WHAT she was feeling. She liked him yes, liked him-liked him as children would say, she loved him in her own way too...but to what extent? She'd never really loved anyone in a less than platonic way, how was she going to know if that was what she felt for him?

WAS that how she felt for him, or was it Penny's words just getting in her head and twisting it all up?

She regretted it, she really did, that Penny had had to mention even the possibility of her liking Sheldon. It was much easier when that thought hadn't even crossed her mind.

"You really do like Sheldon!?" Penny nearly screeched, a wide smile spreading across her face.

"I don't know," Claire groaned into her hands, her words coming out muffled, "I like him, of course I do, he's...he's Shelly. But do I like him because he's Shelly or because you put the idea in my head or because I haven't had a relationship with any guy in over 2 years or..." she pulled her hands away and looked at Penny, the girl's smile fading as she saw tears actually stinging Claire's eyes, "I don't know about anything anymore."

"Oh sweetie," Penny reached out and tugged Claire over to hug her, "I know, I know it can be complicated and confusing..."

"We're talking about me LIKING Sheldon Cooper, Pen."

Penny nodded to that, "Ok, beyond the realm of comprehension then," she amended, a teasing tone to her voice though, secretly pleased she'd managed to use some bigger words in her remark that she was fairly certain were used right, "But you don't have to do anything right this second, Claire. You can take all the time you need to sort this out. I mean, it's not like Sheldon Lee Cooper's gonna find himself an actual girlfriend any time soon. Or ever. Just take a breath and I'm sure you'll figure it out..."

"I don't know how to," Claire admitted, "I've...I've never felt like this before."

Penny pulled away and smiled at her, "Well, as smart as all of you may be in science and English and things, _I_ happen to be the genius when it comes to relationships."

Claire gave her a hesitant look, "Pen, and I mean no offense at all sugar, but...your relationships aren't really something that builds trust in that statement."

Penny deflated but not in a wounded way, more resigned, "Yeah, that's probably true," she mused, "But I've at least HAD relationships. I know feelings, emotions, I know a lot of different types of relationships," she looked back at Claire, "You're my friend, Claire, let me help you at least sort out your feelings, ok?"

Claire nodded slowly at that, "Ok."

"But not right now," Penny stated, "I really AM starving," she reached for her food again and took a large bite of her dumpling, nearly slumping in relief and the taste of it.

Claire had just picked up her own food when there was a sound at the door.

Knock, knock, knock, "Claire," Sheldon called. Knock, knock, knock, "Claire," knock, knock, knock, "Claire."

Claire waited patiently till he'd finished his third set and opened the door, "Hey, Shelly Bean."

Sheldon looked at her a moment, a frown on his face, "You left."

"Yeah," she winced, "Sorry about that. Um," she glanced back at Penny and to him once more, "Raj seemed real excited to talk to y'all, we didn't want to keep him."

"Are you sure?" Sheldon eyed her critically, as though he were trying to see if she was lying to him.

"What else would it be?" she played it off.

Sheldon shifted at that, looking down a moment, "It wasn't something I did?" his stomach turned at the thought that he might have done something, somehow been so offensive or even hurt Claire's feelings without meaning to and driven her away from him. The worst memories he had were of the times they fought and she didn't speak to him. He just...he had to be sure she wasn't mad at him for something.

"Oh, Shelly, no," she reached out to take his hand, giving it a quick squeeze before she let it go, knowing he wasn't very comfortable with touch, even less when he didn't see it coming, "You didn't do a thing."

"Good," Sheldon nodded to himself, looking back up at her, "Do you want to come back to finish eating?" he glanced past her at Penny, sighing, "Penny can come too."

"Thanks, Sheldon," Penny let out a light laugh at that, he sounded more like asking her was an afterthought and a resigned one at that.

"No," Claire shook her head, "Thanks though. Penny and I are having some girl talk."

Sheldon's face scrunched up at that, as though the idea of 'girl talk' was disturbing to him. Which, Claire had to admit, it just might be. His entire knowledge of what 'girl talk' was came from Missy, which did leave something to be desired as Missy often went out of her way to tease her brother, "Right, well, enjoy your 'girl talk.'"

Claire shook her head as Sheldon turned and headed back to his apartment, "What?" she asked when she turned, closing the door, to see Penny smiling.

"Whatever your feelings might be, Claire," Penny told her, "You're definitely not the only one feeling them."

Claire gave her an odd look at that, something about it telling her that her comment had gone right over Claire's head. It did make sense though, Claire had a tough enough time realizing SHE felt something for Sheldon, whatever it might be, for her to even try to entertain the idea that Sheldon might like her back...that was beyond Claire at the moment. And she really didn't want to push too much just yet.

"Forget it," Penny shook her head.

She would focus on helping Claire first and then worry about the walking praying mantis that was Sheldon Cooper. She felt like she was going to have a tough enough time helping Claire sort out her feelings (especially considering this was the same girl that changed her mind about her room, her clothes, and her food ten times a day), never mind when the time came to actually get Sheldon to feel human emotion.

~8~

Claire was frowning down at her Cheesecake Factory menu later the next night, basically squinting at the words that were starting to blur in her vision. It wasn't a 'glasses' moment, no, her eyesight was fairly good, only really requiring her to wear her glasses when she was going to be spending long hours reading or writing, which was not the case now. No, it was the dull throb that had started earlier that day in Sheldon's office and had grown more so while sitting there at the table with the other boys, the tension in the air giving her a headache.

Apparently Raj's news was that he'd recently discovered something in space, something small but noteworthy, enough where he was getting included in a magazine article. Sheldon had done nothing but complain to her while they'd had lunch in his office earlier about it. Raj was boastful and annoying the others with his going on and on about the article. It had made Sheldon, and even Leonard and Howard, reluctant to be as joyous and proud of Raj as they likely should have been. She'd had to leave when Leonard and Howard stopped by the office, a class to teach dragging her away from hearing their attempt at apology to their friend.

Actually, now that she considered it, her headache could have been brought about by her class. They were going over one of the assigned readings and, somehow, it had devolved into a very heated argument between the class. Honestly, she couldn't even remember what the argument was about, she'd let it go on longer than necessary but it was always so thrilling to see students taking such a passionate interest in a novel and vehemently discussing it the way they had been. It had left her feeling both proud and drained, the debate had ended up more of an argument by the end than a discussion.

Raj, and his truly never ending talk about his magazine spot, was not making things any better, especially not now that he'd had a grasshopper and been able to speak with her at the table. She was sure that it had been the guys' plan to invite her to the dinner in the hopes Raj's selective mutism would shine and he'd NOT talk about all of this all over again.

It lasted all of one minute till he'd gotten a sip of alcohol in him.

"So anyway, after a fantastic lunch I was whisked off to the People magazine photo shoot…have any of you ever been to a photo shoot?"

The boys shared an unimpressed look at that before Leonard deadpanned the obvious answer, "No."

"Yes," Claire muttered, making them all look at her in surprise, "Missy was modeling clothes for one of her friends, he's a fashion designer and needed models for his portfolio."

"Did YOU get all dolled up for that too?" Howard nearly leered at her, "I wouldn't mind snapping a few pics of you."

Claire sighed, reaching out to smack her menu against the nearest part of him, sadly just his hand on the table, "No. I was there to make sure it was legit."

"Yeah, well, a photo shoot for People Magazine is much different," Raj steered the conversation back to him, "It's fantastic, apparently the camera loves me and I it. They shot me in front of a starry background where I posed like this," he struck a pose where he basically stared into nothing before releasing it, "They're going to digitally add a supernova, they say it's the perfect metaphor for my incandescent talent."

"Right," Sheldon remarked, "A ball of hot flaming gas that collapses in on itself."

That earned him a nudge from Leonard that had Sheldon rolling his eyes and putting on a rather forced smile…truly, it was a frightening sight to see. He looked more like the Joker from Batman than an actual smiling individual. Claire was almost positive she was going to have nightmares of that smile.

"Excuse me," Raj apologized as his phone rang, "Oh, it's my assistant Trevor," he answered it, "Go for Koothrappali. Uh huh…"

Howard leaned over to speak to Sheldon and Leonard, Claire hearing as well as she was between the two men, "They gave him an assistant? If I want a new pen I have to go to the bank with wire cutters."

"Have we at this point met our social obligations?" Sheldon asked, fighting to speak through his grin.

"Not yet," Leonard sighed.

"Shelly," Claire set her menu down, "Stop doing that, you're giving me the creeps."

Sheldon's entire face relaxed as he rubbed his jaw, "They said I had to smile and nod."

"Well, smile different."

"I don't have that many smiles. Ooh!" he lit up, "I could do my Koala face…"

Claire shook her head, "Don't taint the Koala face, don't waste one of those smiles on this," even she could admit Raj was taking this a little far.

Sheldon pouted, "But I don't have any other smiles figured out yet."

Claire considered that a moment, "Remember that time I surprised you with that recording of the Professor Proton episode you missed when you were visiting your Meemaw?"

Sheldon smiled at the memory, "It was the best episode ever."

Claire gave him a small smile and nodded, "There you go, a nicer smile to use."

Sheldon blinked at that, surprised, and felt his face as though he was honestly shocked he was smiling at the moment.

"Yeah," Leonard nodded, "Just think about all the Professor Proton experiments when you need to smile. The Potato Clock was a classic."

Sheldon glanced at Leonard at that a moment, his gaze flickering to Claire as she went back to her menu, before he looked down at his own. There was this strange niggling in his mind, it was a familiar niggle, don't get him wrong. He was often used to the sensation he would get when Leonard was wrong about something, he usually was wrong about a lot of things. But he couldn't fathom why Leonard WAS wrong about this. He DID enjoy Professor Proton's television show, it had been his favorite as a child, and he supposed thinking of it would make him smile. But he couldn't help the oddness of the niggling telling him it wasn't the memory of Professor Proton that had gotten him to smile…

But what else could it be?

"Ok," Raj was finishing up, "Just put it on my calendar but start thinking of a reason why I can't go, alrighty? Koothrappali out," he chuckled to himself as he ended the call, "God bless that boy, I don't know what I'd do without him."

"You just got him this afternoon," Leonard reminded him.

"Yes, but I'm finding that having a lackey suits me."

"Is lackey really the best word?" Claire frowned at him for that.

"Oh, I'm sorry, is that politically incorrect? In India we just call them untouchables."

That brought Sheldon's grin to a frown as he looked at Leonard, "Now?"

He was really hoping this supposed social obligation Leonard told him about, how if you upset one friend when they're excited about something, you had to make it up to them, was over soon. He honestly didn't understand the concept of it. The only thing that made sense was that he and Raj were colleagues not friends. If Raj was his friend, he WOULD be excited for Raj's discover and recognition. Whenever Claire was excited about something important to her work, he was always very happy for her and supportive. So why would he care if he upset Raj? He wasn't automatically excited for Raj like he was with Claire, so it had to mean Raj wasn't at friendship level yet. So why should he have to worry about upsetting him or making it up to him?

There would be nothing to make up for if they were friends.

Such a strange concept that he had to make things up to Raj when he was just a colleague.

"Almost," Leonard huffed.

"Speaking of untouchables," Raj continued, "I've got great news for you guys. People magazine is having a reception this Saturday, and I managed to get you invited."

"Oh, gee, thanks," Howard muttered, not sounding enthusiastic about it at all.

Raj didn't notice, merely grinning widely, "Oh, you're welcome. Of course, I couldn't get you into the VIP section, because, you know, that's for VIPs, and you guys are just, you know, Ps."

"There's a tribe in Papua New Guinea where, when a hunter flaunts his success to the rest of the village they kill him, and drive away evil spirits with a drum made of his skin," Sheldon stated, "Superstitious nonsense of course, but one can see their point," he offered Raj a smile again.

Thankfully, any comments about that were cut off by the return of Penny who had gone to fetch Raj another drink, "Here you go, Raj, you might want to drink this one slowly."

"Ok," Raj took a deep gulp of it, "So, Saturday night, can I count on my posse?"

"Gee…" Howard drew it out, "I'd love to Raj, but I can't make it."

"Oh, ok, Leonard?"

"Well, uh, no," Leonard tried to come up with an excuse, "I…the…no."

At this point Raj seemed to notice something was going on, "Sheldon?"

"I can make it, but I won't," Sheldon said simply.

Raj frowned, "Claire?"

Claire looked up from the dessert section, "If Shelly isn't going, I'm not."

It was her go to reasoning when there was a conflict on her part over whether to do something. She was indecisive, she knew that, she could flop back and forth from thinking she should go because Raj was something of a friend and he was usually very sweet and levelheaded, that this was just pricking his pride a bit too much. But, then again, she'd have to endure Raj being as arrogant as he was being now and, likely, drunk too if a girl went with him. She could agonize over it for hours, days even, but the simple solution, besides flipping a coin, was to just agree with Sheldon.

It was one reason their friendship worked so well, she was a chaotic mess of indecision, and he was a structured, scheduled, regimented task manager. It was sometimes easier to just go along with what Sheldon wanted instead of having to fret over two options.

And really, it was a better excuse to use Sheldon than to do as Sheldon had done and say she really just didn't want to go.

"What are you guys talking about?" Penny looked at them.

"Raj has a dinner reception for his magazine article," Claire told her.

Penny frowned at that, recalling what Claire had told her about Raj's news, about his discovery, "And you guys aren't going? I can't believe you, Raj is celebrating a tremendous accomplishment and you're not even going to be there to support him?"

She could understand Claire backing out, she'd really only become friends with Sheldon's group of guys recently, but she understood that Leonard and Howard were all friends with Raj for a while longer.

"A tremendous accomplishment would be if the planetary body he discovered were plummeting toward Earth and he exploded it with his mind," Sheldon remarked dryly.

"That would be cool," Howard perked up, "I'd go to that reception."

"Come on, this is huge!" Penny tried to help, "Raj is going to be in People magazine. And he didn't even have to knock up one of the Spears sisters."

Raj beamed at her for that, "Would you like to go with me?"

"Of course I would, I would be honored," Penny smiled down at him.

"Really?" Raj blinked, clearly not having expected her to agree, "Cool."

"Shame on you guys," Penny cast the boys a disappointed look before she turned to get them their check.

"Look at that," Raj turned to Leonard, "I got a date with Penny. I can't believe it took you a whole year!"

Claire just shook her head, setting her menu down.

"Now?" Sheldon looked to Leonard, taking Claire's action as a sign.

"Now," he nodded, all of them getting up to head off, leaving Raj to pick up the bill now that he was a 'big star' as it was.

Sheldon slowed his walk so he was behind Leonard and Howard, beside Claire, "Are you feeling alright?" he asked.

Claire frowned as she glanced at him, "I'm fine, Shelly."

"But you didn't get dessert," he stated simply, "You always get dessert. Unless you're sick," he eyed her, "You're not sick again are you?" he reached up to put the back of his hand against her forehead, "Not exactly the best method," he muttered, "I can get the thermometer when we get back to the apartments and…"

"Shelly," she offered him a small smile, reaching up to gently pull his hand down, "I'm fine. I just…wasn't in a dessert mood."

This time he frowned, "You're always in a dessert mood."

She let out a light laugh, seeming to cause him to relax at the sound of it, she couldn't be feeling too badly if she was laughing, "Did you really want to sit around for 10 more minutes with Raj while I finished my dessert?"

He considered that for a moment, "Not really."

"Well there you go," she nodded.

Sheldon eyed her a moment longer, trying to determine if she was lying to him, before he nodded himself, sensing on falsehood as they walked out of the Cheesecake Factory.

~8~

"You're sure this is ok?" Penny asked for the tenth time as she stood in her apartment with Claire, looking down at her rather simple black dress and flats.

"It's fine, Pen," Claire repeated for the tenth time, a little out of breath, "You're not going clubbing, it's a somewhat formal dinner."

Claire turned and flopped onto the couch with a pant. She and Leonard had gone to pick up some take out for later when she'd gotten an SOS text from Penny about her outfit. She'd left poor Leonard to find a parking spot and hurried into the building, half running up the stairs to check on Penny...only to find out that the 'I accidentally set fire to my dress' situation she was picturing was really just Penny wondering if the dress was too short. She'd picked it for Penny just before she'd left with Leonard, leaving Penny to get changed.

"Right, yeah," Penny nodded, tugging on her dress.

If anyone had told her she would be asking fashion advice from _Claire_ , she would have laughed in their face and recounted the time Claire had actually left the apartment with neon green leggings, a bright orange tank top, and a horrendously pink nylon jacket. She was secretly suspicious that Claire might be colorblind given her taste and beliefs of what colors worked together.

Luckily, for this situation, all Claire had had to do was choose from already put together outfits that Penny had already put her approval on. She selected three dresses that she thought might be appropriate for a dinner like the one Raj was taking her to, she'd just needed Claire to pick out the one that would be best. She assumed that, being an academic, Claire had at least attended some sort of formal event or professional dinner and would know what would work better at one of them. Though, considering that now, and given what she knew of Claire's natural fashion sense, she had to wonder what Claire had worn in the past...

"I guess I'm just...nervous," Penny admitted.

Claire frowned, "About what?"

"You remember how I felt about that date with Leonard?" Penny turned to face her.

"The before, where you were nervous as all hell, or the after, where you kissed him?" Claire teased.

Penny rolled her eyes, "The before. I'm just...what if the other people there start talking all that science mumbo jumbo? What if they think I'm some sort of brainiac space person like Raj?"

"Well," Claire considered that, "Given Raj is taking you, he's gonna need to be a little drunk to be able to just talk to you. I wouldn't worry much. He's been going on and on about this for days now, he'll probably do all the talking or try and direct the attention back to himself."

"I hope so," Penny muttered, she really hadn't thought it through that she'd be at a dinner for Raj's discover and might be mistaken for a scientist and then just end up feeling stupider than she usually did when Sheldon spoke. And Claire wouldn't be there to translate for her.

"You'll be fine," Claire reassured her, just as there was a knock on the door, getting up to answer it, "Raj," she greeted when she saw the man standing on the other side, dressed in a suit, holding two champagne glasses in his hand though one was suspiciously empty.

"Hey Raj," Penny smiled, moving beside Claire, "Look at you!"

"I know, I am resplendent like the noonday sun, am I not?" Raj beamed, making no attempt to compliment Penny in turn.

Claire shot her a look as though to say 'see?' This wasn't going to be that bad, Raj's head was already inflated about the dinner, he would keep all the focus on him easily.

"Um, yeah, starting with the champagne a little early aren't you?" Penny eyed the glasses.

Raj just shrugged, "It was in the limo. They sent a limo. I have a limo. I just love saying limo. Here, sip on this while you're getting ready," he tried to hand her the full glass but Penny politely shook her head.

"Oh, I'm ready."

Raj gave her an odd look, " _That's_ what you're wearing?"

"What's wrong with her dress?" Claire frowned at that, looking at Penny once more, starting to wonder if she'd picked the wrong dress. It was the classiest Penny had laid out for a night like this. She was SURE she'd actually made a good choice this time…

"…nothing," Raj eyed it with distaste, "I was just hoping for something a little more, you know, redonkulous."

"That's not an actual word," Claire crossed her arms, "And it's a semi-formal dinner, Raj. This is what everyone else will be wearing."

"Whatever," he shrugged, throwing back the glass of champagne, "Let's roll. Alright, it's time to raise the roof. Oo-ooh, oo-ooh!" he put his hands in the air in a minor pushing motion.

"Leonard!" Claire cheered when she saw him coming up the stairs, moving to help him with the bag of take out, taking it from him so he'd be able to unlock his apartment door, "Thank god."

And really, right now she was starting to feel a lot better about not going to the dinner with Raj and Penny. Her excuse in the Cheesecake Factory had been right at the time, if Sheldon wasn't going she wouldn't, leave the decision to him. But right now, she was grateful, she really would not have wanted to spend an entire evening with Raj acting like he was.

"Hey," Leonard greeted them, glancing at Penny quickly.

"Dude!" Raj smiled.

"You look very nice," Leonard offered Penny with a shy smile.

"Thank you," it wasn't just Penny that said it.

Penny shook her head at Raj, "Uh, come on, good night Leonard."

"Good night," Leonard nodded them off as Penny led Raj towards the stairs.

"Hey, Leonard, did you see my limo downstairs?" Raj smirked.

"Yeah."

"It's bigger than the house my grandfather grew up in!"

"Terrific."

"It has more food too."

"Funny," Claire remarked dryly, "Same could be said for my house."

"Pshhh," Raj brushed her comments off, "As if."

"Alright," Penny cut in, seeing Claire shifting a little at Raj's words. She knew that Claire had lived in a trailer for most of her life, and from what Claire had mentioned in passing, she hadn't really had all that much food, it probably was the same situation as Raj's grandfather, but Raj was waving off Claire's struggle as though his grandfather's was more. Really, she couldn't help but feel like Claire's might be a little bit worse a situation than Raj's family, times were different way back when, for someone to grow up NOW in similar circumstances as back then said something, "Come on, come on."

Raj laughed a little as Penny grabbed his arm to lead him to the stairs, starting to sing, "I'm coming up so you better get this party started."

"Is it bad that I really hope his discovery turns out to be space poop?" Claire mused as they watched him go.

That earned a small smile from Leonard, "Aren't we all," he agreed, turning to open the door to his apartment, "Hey," he called out to Howard, Sheldon nowhere to be seen.

"Hey," Howard greeted as Claire walked over to the kitchen counter to start unpacking the food, "Good news, you don't have to sulk about Penny any more, look," he turned the laptop he was looking at towards Leonard, "There are hundreds of Croatian women just waiting for you to contact them!"

"What?" Leonard gave him a disgusted look at that.

"I'll lend you my user name, it's wealthybigpenis."

"Oh, Howard!" Claire groaned, truly disgusted, from the kitchen.

"You're joking," even Leonard looked uncomfortable.

"Well, you gotta make it easy for them, they're just learning English!" Howard defended, "Ow!" he winced as something hit him in the back of the head. He looked down to see a packet of soy sauce lying on the floor and spun around to shoot Claire a glare, knowing she'd thrown the packet at him for his remark.

"Pass," Leonard chuckled lightly at the action.

Howard rolled his eyes but turned back to Leonard, "So you're just going to sit around here and mope while Penny is out with Doctor Apu from the Kwik-e-Mart?"

"It's not a date, and that's racist," Leonard told him, moving to get a glass of water.

"It can't be racist, he's a beloved character on the Simpsons."

"Oh, Howie," Claire shook her head, "We're going to have to talk about your understanding of what racism is, aren't we?"

"Let's just eat so I can get to bed," Leonard cut in, "With any luck tonight will be the night my sleep apnoea kills me."

"Is the food ready?" Sheldon called as he entered the room from the back hall, having heard them talking.

"Yup, here you go Shelly," Claire smiled as she pulled out Sheldon's very particular order.

Leonard's shoulder sagged as he prepared himself for the long interrogation Sheldon was about to launch about the order to ensure his had been taken seriously and to his liking. It took more time to answer all of Sheldon's ridiculous questions than it could actually eating the meal at times.

But, to his surprise, (and really it shouldn't have been such a surprise by now), Claire beat both him and Sheldon to it.

" _Diced_ Chicken with broccoli, not shredded, and don't worry," she reassured him, "I checked before we left that it was diced. Brown rice not white, with your favorite hot mustard from the Korean grocery you told me about, and the low sodium soy sauce from the market," she slid his food over to him, "Bon appetit!"

Sheldon's resulting smile seemed almost fond and quite proud as he took the food from her, "Thank you, Claire Bear."

"You're very welcome, Shelly Bean," she beamed at him, "Sorry it took so long, they originally shredded the chicken with broccoli and we had to wait for them to fix it."

"Understandable," Sheldon nodded, moving over to his spot on the couch, "I take it YOU were the one that noticed that?" Claire nodded, making him frown as he looked at Leonard, knowing he had specifically asked _Leonard_ to check on the order. Claire doing so had only come from ages of knowing how he typically liked his take out from various places and making sure those orders were right, but he'd asked Leonard because Claire had seemed a little more quiet the other day at dinner and she was so rarely that quiet (or refused dessert) unless she had a headache, he hadn't wanted to burden her with remembering all that went into his order, but she had anyway, "Were you distracted by the possibility that Koothrappali might have intercourse with Penny tonight?" he asked Leonard.

"He's not going to have intercourse with Penny!" Leonard cried.

"Then there's no excuse for your lack of attention to my chicken," Sheldon defended, "You know, this situation with Koothrapali brings to mind a story from my childhood."

"Oh goody, more tales from the panhandle," Howard muttered, digging into his own food as Claire handed it out.

"That's Northwest Texas," Claire shook her head, "Shelly and I are East Texas."

"Ah, yes," Sheldon nodded, "The Gulf region, home to many Vietnamese shrimpers…"

"Do the shrimpers feature in your story?" Leonard cut in, not wanting Sheldon to get off topic and into yet another story on top of the one they'd have to hear about.

"No."

"Which one is this, Shelly?" Claire wondered, knowing a fair few of his stories.

"When I was eight," Sheldon turned to her as she sat on the armrest beside him, "The Montgomery-Ward delivery van."

"Oh," she breathed sadly, a frown on her face as though she were remembering exactly that story, "Lucky."

"What's lucky about it?" Leonard eyed them, not understanding why she looked so sad about something 'lucky.'

"No, Lucky was my family's cat," Sheldon turned back to Leonard and Howard, "The truck ran him over. While others, such as Claire, mourned Lucky…"

"He was such a sweet kitty," Claire murmured in nostalgia.

"I realized his untimely demise provided me with the opportunity to replace him with something more suited to my pet needs," Sheldon continued, "A faithful companion that I could snuggle with at night, and yet would be capable of killing upon telepathic command."

"So, not a puppy?" Howard eyed him oddly.

Claire chuckled at that, "Oh, Shelly would never go for something so ordinary," she gave Sheldon a fond look, "He wanted a griffin."

Leonard blinked, "…a griffin?'

"Yes, half eagle, half lion," Sheldon nodded.

"And mythological," Leonard pointed out.

But Sheldon just waved that off, "Irrelevant. See, I was studying recombinant DNA technology and I was confident I could create one, but my parents were unwilling to secure the necessary eagle eggs and lion semen. Course my sister got swimming lessons when _she_ wanted them."

It had somewhat worked out for the best though, he HAD gotten a griffin...for a birthday present, from Claire. She'd made him a little stuffed animal version of a griffin. It was always easier to get him a birthday gift when he was refused something by his parents, it gave her a chance to see what he wanted and come up with some way to give it to him in some form.

"Sheldon, not that we don't all enjoy a good lion semen story, what's your point?" Howard sighed.

"My point is, if Koothrappali is moving on to a new life of shallow, undeserved fame, perhaps this is an opportunity to create a better cohort."

"You want to breed a new friend?" Leonard stared at him.

"That's one option, but who has the time? But consider this, the Japanese, they're doing some wonderful work with artificial intelligence, now, you combine that with some animatronics from the imagineers over at Disney, next thing you know, we're playing Halo with a multi-lingual Abraham Lincoln!"

Claire let out a soft chuckle at that and patted his shoulder lightly for a moment, Sheldon did have the wildest imagination she knew.

"Sheldon, don't take this the wrong way, but, you're insane," Howard deadpanned.

"Oh he's not," Claire defended, taking a bite of her food, the lo mein this time, "His mama had him tested."

"Good to know," Leonard muttered, before sighing, "He does have a point though," he looked at Howard, "It wouldn't kill us to meet some new people."

Sheldon shook his head, "For the record, it _could_ kill us to meet new people. They could be murderers, or the carriers of unusual pathogens…"

"If we do get a new friend, he should be a guy you can trust," Leonard mused, "A guy who has your back."

"And he should have a lot of money, and live in a cool place down by the beach where we could throw parties," Howard nodded.

"He should share our love of technology," Sheldon agreed.

"And have some female friends too," Claire threw in, "What?" she smirked when the other three looked at her, "You get another male friend, that leaves Penny and I outnumbered."

Leonard nodded, that did make sense, and, well, more women around couldn't hurt, "Yeah, let's see, money, women, technology, ok we're agreed, our new friend is going to be Iron Man!"

Claire laughed at that, "So would Penny or I be Pepper?"

"Penny," Sheldon answered, not catching the rhetorical tone of the question.

"What?" Leonard frowned at him, "Why would Penny be Pepper?"

Sheldon rolled his eyes as though the answer should be obvious, "Pepper is Tony Stark's partner. Claire is mine. I don't share."

Claire couldn't help but smile at that, "Did you just call me your sidekick, Shelly?" she teased.

"Partner," he shook his head, looking at her, "I said partner. Though you DID make an excellent Batgirl that one Halloween…"

"I still say she's her own hero, not Batman's sidekick," Claire huffed.

Leonard and Howard just exchanged odd looks, watching on as Claire and Sheldon proceeded to get into a heated debate about what defined a sidekick and whether Batgirl qualified as one.

Leonard, however, couldn't help but look more at Sheldon, the man's words lingering in his head. He wondered if Sheldon even realized that he'd implied Claire was more to him than just a partner…because Pepper Potts, while Tony Stark's partner…was also his love interest.

Probably not.

This was SHELDON after all.

If he said partner, he meant partner.

~8~

"Pen?" Claire called from the couch the next morning, keeping far away from the kitchen as Penny did her best to try and scrape the coffee out of the mugs they'd been poured into.

Apparently, Penny hadn't had a great time with Raj. The man had been so arrogant and drunk that he'd spent the entire night making remarks that left Penny both angry and uncomfortable, before trying to drunkenly introduce her to his parents as his girlfriend or something. She'd spent the better part of the night complaining about it to Claire who had gotten up early to try and make Penny some coffee, knowing she'd have a bit of a hangover…the only way Penny had made it through the night was to get buzzed and then drink more once she'd gotten back home.

Unfortunately, she'd somehow managed to turn the coffee into sludge that had gotten so thick that it was sticking to the inside of the mugs.

"Yeah?" Penny winced, turning off the scalding hot water of her faucet as she tried to soak the mugs.

Claire just nodded at the door, where a shadow could be seen under the doorway, moments before a small note was trying to be slid under it.

Penny strode over to it, pulling it open to see Raj just outside it, "Raj, what are you doing?" the man stood and tried to hand her the note instead, "No," she crossed her arms, "No notes. If you have something to say to me, say it."

Raj opened his mouth several times, really trying to say something, making rather inhumane noises that Claire had never heard before…until a very high-pitched and squeaky, "Sorry," slipped past his mutism.

"Oh, sweetie, it's ok," Penny smiled at him, proud of him for managing even a single word to her, before she stepped closer and hugged him.

Claire leaned over, letting out a small huff when she saw Leonard stepping out of his apartment and stopping at the sight of Penny, in her night clothes, hugging Raj before the man turned to leave. She didn't even need to guess where Leonard's mind had gone.

Penny, though, seemed to not notice as she stepped back and shut the door.

"Oh Pen," Claire sighed, shaking her head with a small smile.

"What?" Penny smiled back.

Claire's eyes narrowed at that, "You knew Leonard was there?"

"Maybe," Penny shrugged and moved to sit beside her, "Hey," she defended, "Raj was a grade-A jerk, yeah, but he made a discovery that people in his field thought was important, and they should have supported their friend more. Leonard can deal with a little suggestion there. HE could have gone with me and Raj."

Claire shook her head at that, "You are a devious woman, sugar."

Penny put both hands to her heart, an exaggerated smile on her face as though Claire had just said the sweetest thing, "Thank you!"

A/N: Lol, so Claire is to Sheldon what Pepper is to Tony huh? Hmm...I wonder if he'll ever realize exactly WHAT he implied there ;) I'm laughing a little imagining what Penny would have done/said if she'd been there to hear that one. Or at least what she'd have thought after discovering who Pepper is to Iron Man ;)

Also! I've put a poll up on my profile for the pairing name for Sheldon and Claire :) It'll be up until the next chapter of the story so head on over and vote ;) I'll announce the winner next chapter and we'll have our official pairing name for them :D It may take an hour or two to actually show up on my profile though as I put it up just before posting this chapter, but it should be there soon ;)

Some notes on reviews...

Oh Claire will have quite the time trying to figure out which comic books from her own collection to have Stan Lee sign ;) Imagining how indecisive she is normally, and having to pick just ONE comic book makes for a very interesting time ;)

Understandable :) There are definitely a few episodes I was like 'why?' during that made it a little odd to write the chapter for :)

I'm really glad you liked the chapter! That was always my biggest thing with the show, how Sheldon takes cues and things, because you can just see at times Leonard and the others getting annoyed, almost like they don't understand that it really is something Sheldon struggles with and not something he does just to annoy them :( Claire being there will help keep that in check ;) My book is called 'Patrapolis' on Amazon, the penname is Elixabeth Xavier (as a tribute to my penname here :))

Oh yeah, that's happening. But I just don't get my brother, because, for one he's already tried to call off the wedding 2 times (literally demanded the ring back and another time the deposit to the reception hall back), but decides to 'give her a chance' every single time and she's fine for like a month or two, then annoys him again, and it starts all over :/ He even literally told my mother, when she asked what is it about her that he loves so much he wants to marry her, and he said 'Her personality when she's not being a bitch.' Like that was his legit answer, but given that's half her personality, there was absolutely nothing else he wants to marry her for? :/ He's also lied to her about rejoining our town's fire department, she cannot stand when he goes racing (he has a very low quality racecar) in tournaments which he loves to do, and he's hiding the fact that he bought a motorcycle from her so that, and in his exact words, the next time she annoys him or fights with him he can tell her about it so she'll want to call off the wedding. I really have 0 idea what's going on there :/ Sorry for the little rant, it's just like every person in my family knows he's making a mistake with this but he's set to spite us or 'prove us wrong' and we know that it really will not work. We've known him all his 26 years of life, we know how he is, what it's like to live with him, and she doesn't...but he won't accept that it likely won't work :( And we want him to be happy, but she makes him miserable (and he's even admitted, repeatedly, that she makes him miserable). -sigh- As for the story, oh Claire will only stop hitting Howard with something when he stops being so creepy...and she will mourn the loss of that little thing they do when he settles down down the road lol. I guess she'll have to find something else to hit him for ;)

Claire had her reasons for allowing Sheldon to put Penny on the online dating sight ;) Part of it was that she could see Sheldon wanted to try and get Penny out of her addiction, whether it was from how unhealthy it was and he felt even the tiniest bit guilty or that Penny was just annoying him that much, the fact that Sheldon was trying something to snap Penny out of it made her want to just let him try. It was also that she saw that Leonard wasn't getting through to Penny and desperate times call for desperate measures. If it did work, she still had no doubt that, at some point, Penny would break up with the guy and be free to date Leonard, because she had gone on a date or two after Leonard but they hadn't worked out. It was also partly that she doubted it would actually work. Because, if Leonard couldn't get through to her, it was doubtful a complete stranger would, sort of thing ;) She is still very much team Penny/Leonard ;)

Claire didn't step in more because she hasn't really had a lot of experience with people getting addicted to games and usually, those that did, were men. She knows what to do if Sheldon gets addicted, but how Sheldon is and how Penny is are two very different things and the tactics for one don't work on the other. She's also going on what she knows of Penny and her interests, her interests (as far as she knows Penny) being men. I think her no sex rule for the guys is that they know Penny and they know she's in a vulnerable place and that would be way too much like taking advantage of her. She doesn't want them or Penny to risk their friendships over that. Also, there was no guarantee that the dating site would lead to immediate sex. To Claire, it was a vague hope of just getting Penny away from the game for an hour or two, to reconnect with human beings and remind her of life outside the game. A stranger might have a better chance of getting through to Penny when those closest to her couldn't, because their efforts weren't working. Claire is very much team Penny/Leonard, but she's also lacking in relationship departments, which is why Penny is there to help her. She doesn't want to push Penny and Leonard together, because she doesn't really know how other than to support them. Penny is the more devious one when it comes to that lol ;) Penny and Leonard aren't together yet, Penny has gone on dates with other men, she might have sex with other men before she and Leonard reconnect, but she always had faith that Penny and Leonard would reconnect one day. So a temporary thing from a dating site wasn't world ending to Claire, if it helped Penny she was willing to try anything. It was half, if it helps try it even though it probably won't work, and half it won't work because even Leonard couldn't get through to her sort of thing. She doubted it would work, but hoped it would do enough to get Penny out and about again...so she could end up back with Leonard eventually ;)

I'm glad you're enjoying the story so far :) Unfortunately I have it on my profile that I'm not really planning to ever do a HIMYM story. I just couldn't really get into the show so I don't see any OCs popping up for that show at the moment, sorry!


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